


Smile Like A Checkerboard, Shine Like a Shoe

by essieincinci



Series: No Finer Mess To Be Found [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Belly Kink, Chubby Kink, Insecurity, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chubby bucky, minor medical issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 01:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essieincinci/pseuds/essieincinci
Summary: It’s been established, after filming and streaming six seasons of Tattoo Travelers, that Bucky hates few things more than shopping for clothes. It’s loud and frustrating and unnecessarily complicated and if they go to an actual brick-and-mortar store, which is Steve’s preference, which pretty much makes it Bucky’s preference, they have to go to multiple stores, because no one carries Steve’s sizes and Bucky’s sizes, too. And then that gets Steve going on all sorts of ranting about sizing and choice and fatphobia, as well as a not-so-brief detour into the fall of the modern retail establishment, which Bucky appreciates, but also is exhausting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Yeah, So What by Cory Branan, which is a very, very Steve Rogers love song.
> 
> A million thanks to tempore, charlotte, and anoneknewmoose for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are due to my inability to type and/or stubbornness.
> 
> I doubt anyone would jump in on part 11, but this really is best read in order.
> 
> Also, a note: In this story Phil has a mild heart attack. It's off screen, he's fine, and it's ultimately a highly glossed-over yet oddly important plot point. Again, he's fine, but it does lead some of the characters (Clint) to confront their feelings about mortality. Take care of yourselves, babies.

The thing is, it's pretty difficult to pop a button off a pair of jeans. Jeans are known for their, well, durability. It’s been established, after filming and streaming six seasons of Tattoo Travelers, that Bucky hates few things more than shopping for clothes. It’s loud and frustrating and unnecessarily complicated and if they go to an actual brick-and-mortar store, which is Steve’s preference, which pretty much makes it Bucky’s preference, they have to go to multiple stores, because no one carries Steve’s sizes and Bucky’s sizes, too. And then that gets Steve going on all sorts of ranting about sizing and choice and fatphobia, as well as a not-so-brief detour into the fall of the modern retail establishment, which Bucky appreciates, but also is exhausting. 

It’s better than sitting through yet another recitation of Steve’s “Why Amazon Is Evil” TED talk, though. 

Bucky tends to buy in bulk: two or three black jeans, two or three blue, and maybe a grey pair just for kicks. To mix it up. He has a nicer pair of khakis for the rare occasions he needs to dress up a little bit, and he has a suit - everyone needs a good suit. Never know when it might be needed, and Clint says it’s a jinx not to have champagne in the fridge and a suit in the closet. 

Not that James Buchanan Barnes is taking Life Advice from one Clinton Francis Barton.  That would be nutso bonkers bananas. 

But when Clint’s right, he’s right, and he has a point about the suit. And probably the champagne, come to think of it.

The great thing about jeans, in Bucky’s not so humble opinion, aside from their durability, which he appreciates on a scale that cannot be measured, is that the longer he wears them the more they conform to his body. Bucky’s jeans settle in tight around his hips and thighs, the waistband stretches out a little around his belly. They go worn and soft and comfortable, so they no longer cut into his hips, no longer leave red marks or lines around his stomach. They’re just soft and stretched and easy. Unfortunately, they do reach a point where, after they’ve fought the good fight, he finds he has to adjust them a little more frequently. He pulls them up, but gravity, and gravy, force them down. They roll to settle under his belly, they pull and rip across his thighs, they wear thin along the seams, fraying to holes the longer he wears them. He hitches them back up, but they sink back down.

Still, it’s fine. They work. It’s annoying to have to hitch them up every few steps when he’s walking, or to try to pull them up over his belly only to have them drop back down around his hips, but it’s nothing he can’t work with. They cover his ass and keep him from breaking any decency laws, and really, that’s pretty much the most he asks his clothing to do.

But eventually all good things must come to an end, and these pants (along with most of his others) have really outlived their usefulness. They’re more hole than pants at this point. The back left pocket ripped off a couple months ago, and the button is barely hanging on. 

It’s  _ possible  _ he has put on some weight. A pound here, two pounds there. It adds up. Slowly but surely. Bucky’s a stress eater, and the past few years? Have been what could be called on the stressful side. He’s been living more than half of the year in a tin can, constantly within spitting distance of Steve - who he loves, with all his heart, soulmates, til death. Wouldn’t have it any other way. But also, Steve is  _ exhausting _ . 

He’s learned to manage his panic attacks, for the most part, but his safe space being a stationary but unfamiliar hotel room or familiar surroundings that are also barrelling down the highway isn’t exactly the most calming scenario he can think of.  

While they’ve been on the road and filming, Bucky sort of, well, didn't really work out or go running or live on a schedule like he did when they were stationary. He kept his strength up toting cables and helping with set up and playing gopher for the film crew, but it’s sporadic and irregular at best. He has free weights (“Free weights! Weights didn’t do it!” is Clint’s go-to joke, and Bucky is ashamed of himself for laughing, but he does laugh every. single. time.) in the RV, and he does use them. Sometimes. When he remembers.

They were actually looking pretty dusty last time Bucky remembers seeing them.

Bucky’s role in the series, aside from side-kicking for Steve, is as producer/editor/blogger/web guy, so a lot of his work includes sitting in front of a screen half watching the clock for a deadline while mindlessly making his way through a bag of Bugles or whatever. They come in caramel now, and they’re  _ vile  _ but also he can’t stop eating them. 

He turned thirty, has a mostly-stationary job - and a side gig with the show that has him looking for, taste-testing, and reporting on local delicacies, which are never something healthy like quinoa or vegan chili. It’s more along the lines of fried butter (delicious) or fried oreos (not as good as he’d hoped) or fried cheese (perfection). A lot of fried stuff. A lot of delicious, delicious deep fried stuff. 

And he quit smoking. 

So it’s not exactly unexpected that his worn out jeans are wearing out a little faster, that it takes just a little more tugging to pull the flaps together and zip them up, that he has to press his thumbs into his love handles a little harder to wedge them between his skin and the waistband to pull them back into place. 

He’d put it off until they came home, back to their apartment, to make any purchases. Shipping to hotels was a pain in the ass he tried to avoid unless he had no other choice. He thought about waiting even longer, ‘maybe I’ll get back to the gym over hiatus, maybe I’ll even lose some of the road-weight’ but closely followed that with two bacon cheeseburgers and the largest milkshake he’s ever seen in real life, so. 

When he pulls up the clothing site he prefers, settled down at their kitchen table while Steve heads off to take a shower, “in my very own ba-ath-room!” he sings, somehow off-key, “and the only gross feet that have been in there are yo-ours! The only weird stains are from hair dye and I kno-oo-oow this for certain!” 

They may have stayed in some slightly sketchy hotels out on the road.

Bucky absently rubs at his left arm. He knows he should go up a size when he buys his new pants. But he's also definitely only doing this the minimum number of times as humanly possible and he is not about to set himself up for the hassle of returns and exchanges.

So he crosses the room to dig the tape measure out of their junk drawer and 

oh... kay?

He double checks that he didn’t accidentally turn over to the centimeter side, which wouldn’t have made sense, but neither does what he’s seeing. He doesn't believe it. He picks up the jeans that he was wearing just yesterday from off the floor. Yep, there's the tag, and yep, there's a  _ 42 _ printed right there, clear as day. So he lays them on the bed and wraps the tape measure around them. Except they measure something like 44 and a few 16ths.

Shit. They're almost two years old. He's worn them nearly every day. They’ve stretched. And they’re too tight.

He looks at them again, carefully winding the tape measure back into a little circle so he can put it away (where it  _ belongs _ , Steve.) and sees the popped stitches near his belt loops where he hooks his fingers to hitch them up. Really sees the threadbare seams and the waistband permanently wrinkled into a thin strip of worn-soft fabric where it settles under his gut. The button that's about to fall off.

Yeah. They may have come into this world as size 42s, but they're leaving it a hell of a lot bigger. 

Bucky knows the feeling. 

He clicks the button to buy the larger-sized pants, and exits out of the website with a deep breath. It’s time to get ready, past time really, and Steve’s just stepped out of the shower. 

“All yours,” Steve says from under a towel.

“Save me some hot water?”

“Of course,” Steve says, as if it is a given.

It most assuredly is not a given.

Bucky closes the bathroom door, gaze falling on the fancy bathroom scale he bought a while back. It’s mostly for Steve, though he only remembers to use it four or five times a year. He forgets to eat and has a nervous stomach and he really does try to take care of himself, and so does Bucky, but well. Things happen. Things like living in an RV for the majority of the last six years. 

Where Bucky deals with stressful situations by sitting down with some comfort food and slowly, methodically working his way through it while he slowly, methodically works up a plan, Steve burns hot and fast, tackling his problems head on, immediately, and full steam ahead. He’s pretty good at it, and it usually works out for him. He has the enviable ability to make decisions as he’s acting, to adjust and fine-tune as he goes. Steve would have been a great CO, if he’d ever been able to survive boot camp.

But if he’s not in crisis mode, or rather, when it comes to his day-to-day human maintenance, Steve’s a lot more big picture, and a lot less details. Sometimes, more often than he should, he’ll suddenly look up, say “oops,” and turn green because it’s been fourteen or sixteen or eighteen hours since he’s eaten. Antoine, Bucky, and Scott quickly learned to carry at least a few meal replacement bars with them at all times while they were filming. 

The last time they had to admit Steve to the hospital  - pneumonia, and several years ago knock wood - he weighed in at a hundred and sixteen pounds. Bucky waited until they knew Steve would be fine, and Steve got better enough to start being an asshole again, and he slammed his way out of the hospital and into the nearest Target to buy a fancy digital scale.

He took Clint with him, since it was Clint’s turn to badger him into leaving Steve and doing routine necessary things like showering and not eating hospital food any more than is strictly necessary. Clint took shadow duty very seriously. And also since Clint was the only one who actually knew where the nearest Target even was. 

Natasha came along, claiming she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to playact suburban heteronormativity through shopping. She and Clint wandered the home goods section as if they were registering for a wedding, bickering and calling each other all manner of slightly embittered pet names. Bucky’s never heard anyone say, “Thank you, darling,” and sound like they meant, “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” but Natasha was a damn master.

Also Natasha had the car.

Watching Natasha delicately try on sunglasses and sip a venti vanilla bean frap after they banished Clint to wander the toy aisle, Bucky realized he hadn’t been worrying about Steve for quite a while. Bucky bumped her shoulder with his and said, “Thanks, Nat.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I simply needed to leave the city and buy this very authentic Wu-Tang Clan t-shirt and a reproduction mid century modern planter for my front porch.”

“And I needed a baseball glove,” Clint said, bounding up to them, holding said glove above his head like a trophy.

“Why?”

Clint blinked. “Because I have a penis.”

“It’s pink,” Bucky pointed out.

“So is my penis.”

“And now we should head to the check out,” Natasha said, wiggling her fingers at the plainclothes security guard who just so happened to be in the same aisle as them. Again.

When they brought Steve home from the hospital, Bucky set the scale on the bathroom floor and pointed at it. “Use it.”

“Buck, don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine,” Steve huffed. 

Bucky looked him dead in the eye and said, "One-sixteen, Steve." 

"I got better," Steve said. 

"Monty Python is not a healthcare plan."

"I'm fine," Steve said. After a coughing fit. 

Then Bucky pulled out the big guns. His last resort, guaranteed to win move. "If you use it, I’ll use it."

Steve sagged. "Fine. You don't fight fair."

Bucky said, "Nope" with a grin he was still working on meaning. “One. Six. Teen.”

“Weight is not an indicator of health, you know,” Steve couldn’t help but point out. 

“You don’t say. Tell me more, guy who is still wearing his hospital bracelet.”

“Well. It’s not,” Steve had pouted.  Of course, then Bucky had gotten on the scale and Steve forgot what he was pouting about. Which was how these things usually resolved themselves.

Bucky stands under the shower spray for a long time, letting the water hit the top of his head and run down his body, wiggling his toes a little, even though he can’t really see them past his stomach. Maybe they should have brought the good scale on the road with them. Of course, it likely would have been used for recreational activities, rather than Bucky actually keeping track of his weight, but at least then he wouldn’t have been quite so blindsided. 

He exhales heavily, and shoves those thoughts to the back of his mind while he washes his hair. It’s not as long as it’s ever been, but it’s still long enough to put back when he needs to keep it out of his face. Steve likes to pull it and he likes to make Steve happy. Fewer haircuts is a pretty easy way to go about that. 

He turns the water off and climbs out of the shower onto Steve’s damp towel, still on the floor. He wraps a towel around himself, and steps onto the scale. 

Back off. Drops the towel. Back on again. 

"Steve,” he calls. “C'mere."

Steve’s getting ready for the shoot, the last episode of season six, but he pokes his head into the bathroom. "What's up?"

"First of all, I am worn out from this morning. Neither the spirit nor the flesh is willing, you get me?"

"Uh. Okay? I was getting dressed. You’re the one all wet and naked, with your hair all, all wet. And sexy. Calling me in here."

Bucky takes a long moment to look at Seve. 

“What,” Steve asks. 

Apparently satisfied, Bucky takes a breath, then asks, "Is the scale broken?"

Steve scrunches up his face. "Don't think so?" He squeezes past Bucky and steps up. "Nope. One twenty-seven, sounds about right to me." He steps back down. "Why?"

Bucky takes another, somehow deeper breath. “This is not foreplay,” he warns again. He steps up onto the scale. Gestures, and Steve leans around his bulk to look at the display window on their scale. 

"Error," Steve reads aloud. Bucky hears him swallow. "Oh."

"I know you know what that means," Bucky says, grabbing the towels from off the bathroom floor and hanging them up, gesturing pointedly at Steve in the process. “This is where the towels go, by the way.” 

Steve's mouth forms words but no noise comes out. 

Bucky shakes his head.

Steve tries again to speak. "It maxes. Uh. It maxes out at two sixty-nine." Steve swallows again. Walks out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. Slowly. Intentionally. Takes a drink before saying, "Standard is like three hundred and some, some scales go to five. You bought some weird model with an unusual maximum, because you liked the aesthetics and it has an app. Which is bullshit, by the way, but it means you're over two seventy."

"Yeah. That's what I thought that meant." Bucky says. “And the app is cool.”

“The app is selling your location and god knows what other data to god knows what kind of companies, but sure, Buck. It’s cool.”

“You host a highly-rated program that broadcasts our exact location every week, Steve. Climb down off that high horse.”

“It’s about choice,” Steve starts. “And hey, don’t think you can distract me that easily. Two-seventy, huh?”

“Probably more,” Bucky says flatly. 

Steve takes another drink. "So you," he starts before realizing he has no idea how to finish.

Bucky shakes his head once. Then kind of. Shakes all over, a little like a wet dog. A few strands of wet hair stick to his forehead, and he has to smooth them back. "Well. Not really a surprise, is it?"

"I mean. Kinda," Steve says.

Bucky pauses halfway through pulling on his worn-out raggedy jeans. "Steve," he struggles through settling the pants on his hips, tugging the flaps together to just barely squeeze the button through the hole. "Is it? Is it really?"

Steve lifts the corner of his mouth. "No. Not really I guess." He walks over and snuggles in close for a hug. "You good, Buck?"

"Yeah. Of course. Get out of here, we got a show to do."

Steve narrows his eyes and looks hard at Bucky but finally nods and finishes getting ready to head out. 

* * *

Bucky can’t remember whose big idea it was to stream the season openers and finales live from Ruby’s Diner, but it most assuredly wasn’t his. He’s met Steven G Rogers before, therefore he knows better than to give him a platform that’s unscripted and uncensored and expect the expected out of him.

But it made for damn good television, and Steve’s a marketing genius. Somehow he manages to lay out a theme in the opener, thread all the subsequent episodes together, and wrap them up with pinpoint recall in the finale, all without seeming to give it a second thought. It’s magic. 

Of course, all magic comes with the caveat, ‘be careful what you wish for’, so Bucky’s not entirely sure why he’s surprised that for the season six finale, one hundred fifty episodes in, just after Scott sets up the camera and Antoine calls, “and... go!” Steve leans back in the booth across from Bucky, takes a deep breath, nods to himself and says, plainly, “I think I’m done.”

Bucky rolls with it, because that is his part to play in this whole thing: Executive Producer and Straight Man. He’s actually credited that way. On IMDb and everything. Wild. “You sure? You’ve barely touched your grilled cheese.”

“No, not that,” Steve takes a big, pointed bite, strings of melted cheese stretching out from the sandwich. “I think I’m done with the show,” he says, mouth still full.

Bucky shoots a glance at Scott, who grins and gives them a big thumbs up. Then again, Scott almost always grins and gives them a big thumbs up. Bucky’s not entirely sure Scott truly knows what thumbs up means. Then he glances at Antoine in the background, who is gesturing wildly for Bucky to. Well, he wasn’t fluent in semaphore, but he’s pretty sure Toine wanted him to shut Steve up, like, yesterday.

Bucky shrugs, because, hello. Has Antoine met Steve? Trying to shut him up would only make this worse. Besides, what is Bucky supposed to do, cut to a commercial that they’re not scheduled to have?

“Babe? You uh. You wanna maybe finish that bite and talk about your favorite tattoo this last season?” He gives it his best shot.

Steve looks off into the distance for a minute, clearly pretending to think about it, ignoring Antoine’s flailing. “Nope. I mean, I will, in a minute, but first. I just. How many shows are even any good after the sixth season? Let’s go out on top. I think. Yeah. I think I’m done. I like round numbers.”

Bucky snorts out a little laugh. Steve and his fucking numbers kink. “Round numbers.”

“One-fifty has a good ring to it.” Steve continues, ticking things off on his fingers. “I miss being here, being home. I miss our friends. I miss Mrs O’Leary’s loud, smelly dog. I miss the shop, my shop with my chair. The  _ chair _ , Buck. I miss fucking you in a bed that’s bigger than a couch.”

“Streaming live, ladies and gentlemen, to my mother and baby sister and everyone else we’ve ever met,” Bucky mutters.

“We’re married. Pretty sure the cat’s out of that bag. But I’m sorry,” Steve looks straight into the camera, defiantly ignoring the way Antoine is crouched on the ground, head in hands, his clipboard and headset abandoned. “For the record, he does me most of -mmph!”

Bucky dives across the table, dislodging several saucers - and Scott - in his attempt to smother the words coming out of Steve’s mouth. He thinks he hears Antoine groan in the background.

“You done?” he asks, physically nodding Steve’s head up and down for him.

“Mmmf.”

Bucky leans a little farther over the table to kiss Steve on the nose the way he hates. “Okay then,” he says, sitting back down. “So this is it?” He reaches out to help resettle Scott.

Scott, of course, gives him a thumbs up.

“This is it.”

“Huh. Okay.”

“Okay?” Steve asks, belatedly remembering to check in with Bucky about the life plans he’s just made up for the two of them. Not to mention the entire crew. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He knows Steve. He forgets to let people in on the plans he makes for them, which is frustrating and infuriating and all sorts of annoying, but he never fails to consider them. He’s got this worked out. Bucky trusts him. “Let’s go home. Stay home.”

Steve beams at him.

“Uh, guys?” Antoine calls from his place on the floor, head still clutched in his hands, headset still discarded and sitting sadly beside him. “Could you, I don’t know. Stop talking about your sex life and maybe finish the episode? Please?”

* * *

Bucky pushes his hair back out of his face. Again. He’d forgotten an elastic and he’s very much regretting it. He’s working on the website, huddled in the corner of Coulson’s office, earbuds in to help him focus. He’s wrapping up some of the loose ends now that the show’s apparently final episode has been posted for a full day. Most of the comments on the official announcement are some variation of “nooooooooooooooooooooooo!” which is kind of validating, actually. It’s sometimes hard to remember that while they’re wandering around the country like some kind of punk beatniks, rambling on about tattoos and food, they’re actually reaching people, helping them, giving a voice to some and a perspective to others. 

Antoine and Steve are in a meeting with Coulson where Steve is surely smugly pointing out that yes, he did in fact have the contractual right to end the show after concluding any twenty-five episode season without penalty. Antoine’s counter had been to appeal to Steve’s desire to help people, bringing up the podcast idea he pitched back when season four premiered. 

“Oh yes, such a visual medium, podcasting, perfect for me to talk about tattoos,” Steve had argued, but now that he wouldn’t have to split his focus, he’s giving the idea some serious thought. Steve's complaint hadn't been about what they were doing, only about where they were doing it. A podcast will let him continue the discussion, but provide some more stability. Antoine’s a hell of a producer, and if he’s not travelling around with them, he can branch out and produce some other projects he’s been kicking around. They’ll figure it out. Bucky puts his headphones back in.

He’s looking for a new promo pic. The show’s not going to film any new episodes, but new people are discovering it every day, and Bucky transcribes some of the rants Steve goes on for blog posts, and they’ll need to keep the site active for when the podcast gets going. 

Bucky’s gotten pretty good at reading Steve over the years, and he knows an inevitability when he sees one coming. 

There’s one picture that immediately catches his eye. A while back they had stopped near a lake at golden time, getting out to stretch and breathe and let Bucky regain his bearings after being stuck in traffic for an interminable afternoon. Steve had been wearing this great simple leather jacket that fit like it had been made just for him, the light around him highlighting his hair in a halo and catching on his ridiculous eyelashes. The way he’s standing in the photo, Bucky can see now, this had to be the moment he decided to end the show. He’s not sure how he knows, but it’s there in the set of Steve’s jaw, in his shoulders. 

Bucky can already tell if he chooses this one, it’s going to feature heavily in the hashtags he learned the hard way not to click on. It’s weird enough to know a whole bunch of strangers routinely discuss their sexual fantasies of his husband. He doesn’t need the details. 

Also, for fans of a show that’s basically a window into Steve’s brain, a whole lot of people don’t get him  _ at all _ . 

Bucky clicks through the rest of the thumbnails just in case and lands on another candid, this time one centered on him. He’s in profile, full body turned sideways from the camera. He’s smiling at something Steve’s said, with Steve pulled off balance and halfway into a noogie, just the top of his head visible. 

Bucky catches his breath and pushes his palms into his knees. 

He’s  _ huge _ . He clicks through to the next one, and Steve’s fully in the frame now. Bucky’s stomach is completely blocking Steve’s entire torso out of the shot. He looks good, he’s smiling and obviously happy, but also. Huge. 

The RV doesn’t have a full length mirror, and neither does their apartment. The camera usually only films his face and shoulders, or isolates on whatever part of his body Steve’s tattooing if that’s what they’re working on for that episode. Unless he catches his reflection in a shop window or something, Bucky hasn’t really seen his full body in almost a year.

He knows what his clothes say and he knows what the scale says, but numbers are Steve’s thing. Bucky’s more visual, always has been. Seeing himself like this, from outside his own body, is something new.

“Bucky,” Steve says, his voice breaking through the silence while one song changes into another. Sounds like it’s not the first time he’s said something. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Bucky clears his throat. “You all done here?”

Steve gives him that concerned look again, but doesn’t push. “Not yet. But we’ll get lunch after. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, turning his attention back to the laptop. 

“Hey,” Steve calls again.

Bucky looks up just in time for something to come flying toward his head. He snatches it out of the air. It’s a hair tie.

Steve shrugs, smiles.

“Thanks.” Bucky puts his hair back into a low ponytail. His hand hovers on the mouse for a minute before he decisively clicks to edit the photo of Steve and write up a recap. 

Steve’s not the only one of them with fans. There are a few hashtags and message boards on external sites about Bucky and his other costar: his weight. There’s a lot of concern trolling - for both of them - a lot of “dude needs to eat a salad,” - for both of them - and occasionally someone will attempt to reach out to them with nutritional advice. One “detox tea” even tried to get Bucky to be their official spokesperson. 

Bucky and Steve’s official correspondence is routed through Coulson’s office and is screened by Natasha. It’s really for the best that Bucky has plausible deniability about the response to that one, and that all of them have sworn to never, ever tell Steve.

There are of course a lot of people who legitimately don’t care, and then there’s people like Steve, people who apparently think Bucky’s the best thing since pockets on shirts, and it’s even better that he’s fat as fuck. Nice to know, and everyone likes to have their ego stroked now and again. Before Bucky learned and took to heart the advice ‘NEVER GO INTO THE COMMENTS’ he’d sometimes wind up there. It was, technically, part of his job. Technically.

The ego boost wasn’t worth the rest of it, though. The internet can be a bad, bad place.

He and Steve have talked, obviously, throughout the course of their relationship about what they do, but generally they keep it in the context of actually doing it. They have never-used safewords and they check in with each other, but they don’t really play with their limits. If one of them says no, they mean no and they move on. They just haven’t ever felt the need to negotiate that way. 

So he doesn’t really know if Steve has a limit, a weight where Bucky passes from sexy to … whatever’s on the other side, like some of the people in the message boards.  _ ‘I liked him better in season one, in season three he got too big.’ _

Bucky ignores the little voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Coulson that tells him that maybe he should ask. Maybe negotiation wouldn’t be amiss. Before it’s. Well. Just because it would be nice to know. 

It’ll come up. Besides, Steve didn’t leave that comment. It’s not like there’s any problem with their sex life. It’s as active and as satisfying as ever, and there’s no sense in borrowing trouble, as Clint likes to say. 

Bucky shakes his head. More life advice from Clint, but then again, Clint’s also in a healthy and stable long-term relationship, so maybe it’s not nutso bonkers  bananas to listen to him every once in a while .

Steve appears next to him, and Bucky pulls his earbuds out and looks up. “Lunch?”

“Lunch,” Steve nods. 

He pushes his thoughts to the back of his mind. Bucky Barnes: master of compartmentalization. 

He and Steve walk down the street toward the diner, taking in the changes to the neighborhood since the last time they were back in town. It feels bigger, maybe. Emptier. Bucky’s not sure if it really is or if it’s just the feeling of being home, of not having to go back out on the road. 

“Coulson said Tony wants to set up a meeting.  _ Set up a meeting _ . It’s Tony. It’s not like he can’t just show up and say hi.” Steve stops walking, tugging on Bucky’s sleeve. “What?” 

“What, what?” Bucky turns toward him. 

Steve’s got his hands on his hips and his face is serious. “You’re doing your murder walk,” he says.

Bucky spits out a laugh, “My  _ what _ ?”

“Your murder walk. It’s all,” Steve waves a hand at him. “From your hips. Big shoulders. Steady breathing. You look ready to flat murder some dudes. You do it sometimes.”

Bucky rolls his shoulders, releasing tension he didn’t know he was holding. “Murder walk?”

“Yes. We gonna have a problem?” Steve cranes his head around to look past Bucky. “I don’t see anything.”

“No, we’re fine, put your angry eyes away. What did Tony say about the shop?”

“Why were you on high alert?” Steve presses, resuming their walk.

“I don’t know. Didn’t even know I was doing it,” Bucky shrugs. 

Steve makes a sound like he doesn’t believe him. 

“Tony?” Bucky prompts. 

Steve starts walking again. “I don’t know what it is. He only said he wanted to talk in person.” He pulls the door to Ruby’s diner open and holds it for an elderly couple before following Bucky inside. 

Steve shivers when the air conditioning hits him, and Bucky shakes his head, his back a little sweaty from their walk. Between the two of them, they make a single, normally thermoregulated person.

“Maybe it’s Wanda and Pietro,” Bucky says, sliding into their booth. It’s their booth because they always sit there. They always sit there because the one bench is farther back from the table than any of the others, meaning Bucky can fit comfortably. “Since it’s kind of their shop now.”

“No it isn’t. I let them cover for me at the shop. I let them, you know, tattoo people and take care of things while I was gone. I didn't  _ give  _ it to them.”

“Yeah. But for the last six years you've mostly been gone,” Bucky smiles at the server, not Ruby, someone new but who has clearly been briefed on who they are, and orders. “Sure, you show up and do events and your name on the door certainly doesn’t hurt matters. But the day to day? Running the shop? That's been Pietro and Wanda, almost entirely on their own.” 

“Well, they can't have changed much,” Steve says. “It's tattooing. It's not ... dentistry.”

“Dentistry?”

“Yeah. You know, how dentistry is a lot better now than it was even twenty years ago?” Steve absently rearranges his silverware. 

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Just … dentistry was your go-to?”

“Yes,” Steve snaps. 

“Alright, Steve. Listen, I just want you to be careful waltzing in there like you own the place.”

“I  _ do  _ own the place.”

“Yeah, lead with that. Let me know how it works out for you.”

* * *

In the morning, Bucky kisses Steve on the forehead and warns him again, “Diplomacy, Steve. I know you can do it,” and heads off to his doctor appointment. 

It’s supposed to be just his yearly routine check up, but he wants to talk to them about a little more weakness he’s noticed in his arm. Nothing major, and it’s probably going to result in a lecture about not consistently keeping up with his exercises, but he’s not going to gamble since he doesn’t have to. 

There’s a new doctor he’ll be seeing, too, and Bucky’s not sure how that’s going to go. He’d liked this practice because so far no one pinned blame for his arm almost being taken off in a military accident in South America on his weight. Seems like a pretty small ask from people who studied anatomy, but that wasn’t always the case. 

He finishes filling out the forms, Fugazi running through his head as it always does the minute he steps into a waiting room, then absentmindedly flips through gossip magazines and half pays attention to the home improvement show on the TV in the corner. The room is large and there are two TVs on opposite ends, but the sound from the far one is just half a second delayed and it’s setting him on edge, giving him a headache. Maybe Steve’s right that he’s been on high alert the past couple of days. 

He tries paying attention to the show, thinking maybe there would be a project he could draw inspiration from or something along those lines, but it turns out these shows - at least the ones that seem to be on marathon for this interminable wait - mostly feature overly-privileged people whining and sniping at each other about their dream homes not being perfect. 

Five hundred grand is a lot of money to spend and not get everything that’s important, but it seems like if they really wanted to live in a downtown setting, they’d understand needing to giving up a private two-car garage. 

“They’re all like this,” the receptionist says when Bucky heaves another sigh and catches his eye. “All. Damn. Day.”

Bucky smiles, “You could turn on soaps?”

“I wish,” the guy says. “Maybe when I get more seniority. For now, Claire controls the televisions.” He says Claire the way some people say Beyonce. “At least when she took over, she took it off the news.”

Bucky nods and looks back down at his magazine. He’s trying to decide what to do as a thank-you present for Josefina. She’d been keeping an eye on their apartment while they were on the road, doing little things to keep it nice. Just running the water sometimes, opening the windows when the weather was good so it could air out, that sort of thing. But she had also teamed up with Bruce and kept the rooftop garden going for him. She claimed it was because now that she’s had the real thing, she couldn’t go back to greenhouse tomatoes. Bruce had seconded, mentioning that was a common theme when he brought the kids from the rec center around. 

He’s thinking something in the fabric crafts arena. Steve has a box in the back of his closet full of t-shirts that Bucky found one day when he was looking for something to wear. Steve had been backed up on appointments - the show had taken off and the shop was  _ packed _ during the second season hiatus. They hadn’t gotten to the laundry, then when Steve finally took a day off - at Peggy’s urging, because she was the only damn one of them with any sense, and could see Steve was working himself ragged - it’s possible that they prioritized pizza and ice cream and maybe the shirt Bucky was wearing the day before was now missing a couple of buttons.

Bucky dug through the closet for something he could at least put on to go to the laundromat, and found a cardboard box. He unfolded the flaps and pulled out a hideous day-glo green t-shirt. It reminded him of the terrible shirts he'd gotten in elementary school for field day at the end of the year. He checked the size, and it was way too big for baby Steve. It was way too big for grown-up Steve. Oh, maybe this was Steve’s shame box - things one night stands or exes left behind that he'd never bothered to get rid of. 

Bucky grinned, and pulled the shirt over his head. He smoothed down the front, ready to give Steve all kinds of shit for it, and noticed the writing across the front. 

Steve was, well, a little free and easy back in the day, but there’s no way he would have slept with a guy who wore a shirt with “back in the kitchen, bitch, where’s my sandwich” on it. Not a chance in hell.

Bucky dug through the box, and it was stuffed full of shirts like that. Just shirt after horrible shirt of misogyny and homophobia and a few racist sports logos. Bucky sat there confused for about twenty minutes, on the floor in the middle of a pile of nonsense until it occurred to him that Steve either

A. confiscated them from kids at the rec (with a lecture on the bigotry behind the slogan - somehow when Steve lectured the kids they listened. They rolled their eyes and called him names, but they listened. It’s like one of Steve’s super powers.)

or

B. Steve bought them from the thrift store before they could pollute the minds of anyone else.  

Probably a little of both. 

Bucky had packed them up again and shoved them back into the closet, faced with the same dilemma he's sure faced Steve. They're perfectly good shirts. Horrible, but functional. He couldn't justify throwing them away, but he really couldn't stomach setting them loose on society.

They don’t hit up thrift stores and rummage sales too often anymore, they just don’t have the time, and Steve insists that because they have the resources, they should shop ethically elsewhere. But every once in a while they’ll come across something somewhere to buy and then immediately throw into the box. 

He’s thinking now if he cuts the shirts up into strips and does some kind of macrame thing, there could be something there. He’ll think on it some more. An idea will come to him. The box isn’t going anywhere. 

When the nurse finally calls him to the back, he knows he’s going to be weighed, and he knows he weighs at least two-seventy, and he knows he’s gained weight, but he actually doesn’t believe her when she stops pushing the little weights around on the scale and then jots down ‘277’.

“Excuse me?" He chokes out.

"Yeah,” she smiles a little awkwardly. “Up thirty pounds since your last visit. We've seen a huge spike, so to speak, in weight gain across the board since the election." She gives him a half shrug. “Me, too. No one is immune, it seems.”

"But. Two seventy-seven."

"Yes"

"Two hundred seventy-seven pounds."

"And four ounces." The nurse says. "Is it a concern? Would you like to meet with our dietician or consult with our weight management specialist? They’re both great.”

"Huh? No, no. I was just - "  _ picturing what Steve will say _ . He clears his throat. "Surprised."

She smiles, “Kinda snuck up on you?”

“Yeah.” He follows her into the exam room. Truthfully, he is a little concerned. He wants to stay active. He hasn’t really been doing it lately, but he loves running and he's worried about his knees. 

He pushes any question of Steve's possible upper limit out of his mind.

He tells the doctor as he’s moving Bucky’s arms around in unnatural ways while he’s holding a thirty-five pound dumbbell and asking about his typical workout routine.

"Do you have bad knees?” the doctor asks him. 

"No?" 

"Any pain?" 

"Not there. My back a little." 

"Then you're fine, as far as your knees go. For your back, work on strengthening it if you’re going to be carrying around this kind of weight." 

"Huh. Okay?”

“Mr. Barnes,” the doctor regards him intently. “You’re relatively healthy, aside from the nerve damage and lingering trauma to your arm, which I’m relatively certain has nothing to do with your weight. You are, medically speaking, obese, but that’s a term that’s largely meaningless. Your bloodwork has been fine to this point and I have no reason to think this time will be any different. If your weight is concerning you or impacting your mental health, we have doctors here to assist you in managing that. Otherwise, I have no reason to believe you’re in any medical danger from it at this time.”

“Are you really a doctor?” Bucky blurts out. 

“One of the best,” the doctor replies, somehow sounding both smug and not.

“I’ll say,” Bucky says, and focuses again on moving his arm through the routine to test his range of motion. 

* * *

 Back before they left for the first of what would become Tattoo Travelers, Steve had to figure out what to do with the shop. He knew if the show was good - and how could it not be - that having a home base where he could capitalize on his new-found fame would be amazing. He didn’t want to let people who wandered by on the spur of the moment to come across a “closed” sign and then never come back, or worse, show up on the internet with any number of rumors about why the shop was closed. But he’d never really taken on any apprentices and most of the other artists he knew were either successful on their own or on the wrong coast or both. 

Just when things were starting to look desperate, Clint dragged home some strays - meaning he used his Clint-ness to find a team of artists who were unappreciated in their own shops and headhunted them. 

“Look, Steve, look! They’re perfect! Can I keep them? I mean, will you hire them?” 

“Clint, where did you - how did you?”

“Not just a hat rack. Meet your future, kids,” Clint said by way of introduction.

And the kids - because they really looked like kids - glanced at each other, all huge eyes and what was probably a telepathic conversation. 

“Twins?” Bucky guessed.

The girl nodded. “We have a portfolio. And a website.”

“And we’re big fans,” The boy added, because flattery may not work every time, but it sure never hurts.

“You’re the oldest, aren’t you?” Bucky asked.

“Twelve whole minutes,” he said. “Pietro. This is Wanda.”

“Annnnnnnnd,” Clint said, drawing the word out, “She promised me she’s a good witch, and Steve, we haven’t had one of those around in  _ forever _ .”

“He’s very strange,” the boy said. “I like him.”

“Aw, I like you, too, kid,” Clint smiled. 

Steve had looked over their very impressive portfolio and agreed to give them a try-out, though he talked a big game about it being strictly probationary. 

The final test came when Steve let Pietro handle a huge piece on Clint’s ribs. No one could fault Steve’s pigheaded dedication to his craft, his shop and his reputation on the line, but really, this level of micromanaging was extreme even for him. Bucky had taken Pietro and Wanda aside and told them it was Steve’s way of handling his nerves for the show. Antoine was risking a lot on this venture, and if it failed, his career was likely going to wash up with them. 

“We know,” Wanda told him. “Peggy said the same thing. So did Natasha. And I think that is what Clint was trying to say, but he was distracted when someone walked by with a dog.”

The design was intense, something fantastical that Wanda drew up for Clint that would involve incredible amounts of shading. Clint had some knotty places on his ribs from past breaks - the design plus the placement would absolutely be proof positive of Pietro’s skill.

“Steve, please. Stop hovering. You’re making me nervous,” Pietro said.

“Nerves are good,” Steve said, not backing off. “Means you care.”

“Nerves are bad,” Pietro countered. “Means my hands shake.”

“Shaking hands are bad,” Clint said.

“Pietro’s hands have never shaken,” Wanda called from up at the counter.

“It’d be a bad time for them to start,” Clint said.

Luckily, at that point the bells over the door jingled and Jeanie came in. “Hi, Bucky! Hi, Everyone! Steve, I have a question for you.”

“Sure,” Bucky said, pushing Steve toward the front and leaving Clint to Pietro’s gentle, steady hands. 

“Oh, whoever that girl is, she is my new favorite,” Pietro said, taking a deep breath and bending back over Clint’s ribs.

“Hey!” Clint objected. 

“Yes, yes, you are my real favorite,” Pietro said.

“Mine, too,” Coulson said, proving he was actually paying attention to the chaos going on around him, even though he was still bent over his phone, responding to emails. Clint liked to keep him in his sightline when he’s having work done. 

“Hey!” Wanda said, smiling.

“Okay, that’s it! I have no favorites!”

Steve had made his way over to Jeanie, “You need a consult or what?” while Bucky wisely stayed behind, keeping an eye on Pietro’s work for when Steve gave him the third degree.

“Kind of?” Jeanie said. “This song came on the muzak at the store today and I couldn’t grab my phone in time, and I don’t know what it was. It goes,” and she started humming.

“Oh, yeah,” Steve paused. “That’s -” and he paused again. Hummed a few notes. Then he stopped, his eyes wide, looking for all the world like a deer in headlights. “Um. That’s.”

“Oh shit,” Clint said. “She stumped the Steve!”

“XTC,” Coulson said softly, glancing up at Jeanie and then back at his phone. “Mayor of Simpleton.”

“Yes!” Steve shouted.

“Please!” Pietro shouted back.

“Sorry,” Steve said. “But yes. I knew that.”

“Okay, Steve,” Clint scoffed.

“I did!”

“Course you did, babe,” Bucky said.

Jeanie tapped on her phone and the song started playing, “That’s it! I like this. What else is like this?”

“Um,” Steve said again, clenching his jaw. “There’s.”

Coulson named a few bands, grinning as Steve visibly wracked his brain for similar bands and came up empty.

“Elvis Costello!” Steve shouted.

“Again, please! With the sudden shouting! What kind of a test is this?” Pietro muttered.

Jeanie nodded intently as Coulson carried on listing bands and songs and albums, adding them to her list to look up later.

“New wave sucks anyway,” Steve muttered, turning up The Lawrence Arms on the shop’s speakers.

Somehow through all of that, Pietro managed to execute Wanda’s design beautifully, even to Steve’s standards. And while that wasn’t an uncommon day at the shop, it had been an unarguable indicator that Wanda and Pietro were more than capable of taking over.

* * *

Bucky decides to walk back to the shop even though it’s pretty far. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and hot, but with a breeze. He wants some time to think, and some time to prepare. Sure, Steve can be diplomatic, he has proven himself tactful in the past, but it’s definitely not one of his strong suits, especially not when he thinks he’s right. 

Which is kind of always.

Bucky’s sympathetic, obviously, but there’s two sides here. It is Steve’s shop and it is largely Steve’s name that keeps a steady stream of clients walking through those doors. On the other hand, Wanda and Pietro have been running the business quite well without them, and have more than enough name recognition on their own now to keep the shop steady. People are more than happy to get some ink from Steve Rogers’ second in command, after all. 

Hopefully, Steve will remind them that now that he’s back, they can go to cons and expos, work on building their rep that way, and keep the shop as a home base the way Steve did. Remind them that it’s their time to shine. 

And they’re not even sure Tony wants to talk about operations. It could be something else entirely. It’s Tony. He might want to fly them all to Malibu for strawberry picking. Who knows.

Not much Bucky can do about it, Steve’s gonna Steve it up no matter, so he shifts his thoughts  to what he’s going to do to celebrate or commiserate when Steve gets home. He’s thinking about those jeans. And the numbers kink Steve very definitely has.

Two seventy-seven. Steve’s gonna get a kick outta that.

His phone buzzes with Steve’s text  _ dinner? _ and Bucky replies,  _ I’m already on it _ and he smiles again, rerouting. He’s got a couple hours and a whole new plan to put in place.  _ Meet at home _ he texts again, so Steve doesn’t wait around for him. Or rather, so Steve doesn’t forget he’s coming, get caught up in work, realize Bucky’s still not there, and then panic.

By the time Steve comes home, Bucky’s got everything in place. He’s ordered from their favorite Italian place. Triple their usual order.

He’s already halfway through his first plate when Steve walks in the door and tosses his keys into the bowl on the side table by the door, “Hey, Bucky, you ready to hear this shi - oh.”

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky replies. He’s leaning back a little on the sofa, his full plate resting on top of his belly. He’s wearing a button up that’s a little too small, gaps showing where the buttons strain across his stomach. And those almost buttonless jeans. 

“Oh.”

“Wanna sit down?” He gestures, making sure Steve sees the already empty containers next to him. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, you said that already.” Bucky loads up another forkful and takes a huge bite.

He works his way through the feast, and keeps a careful eye on Steve. Steve, in turn, keeps a careful eye on Bucky. 

On the way the fabric on his shirt strains every time Bucky takes a breath. 

On the way Bucky has to pause, breathe for a minute before loading up his fork again. 

On the way Bucky stops, rubs his open palm across the fullness of his stomach. 

Usually, about this time, after Bucky’s put away enough food that he has to really prepare himself before another bite, he’ll catch Steve’s eye and slowly flick open the button of his jeans and let Steve watch as the weight of his belly pushes the zipper down, tooth by tooth. 

The  _ noise  _ Steve makes when that happens. Just thinking about it is enough to get Bucky half hard. 

This time, though, Steve’s eyes keep darting downward, toward his button and back up, but Bucky’s hand hasn’t so much as twitched toward his pants. Steve stopped even pretending to eat around the time Bucky loaded up his third -  _ third _ ! - plate, and was just absently nodding along, making agreeing noises as Bucky talks. Honestly, Bucky doesn’t even know what he’s saying, just keeping the story going long enough to make sure Steve’s on edge and ready for when he makes his move. 

Bucky pushes his plate away. He’s left a few bites on it, and predictably, Steve pipes up immediately. 

“Don’t you. Uh. Don’t you want to finish that last bit off?” Steve’s voice is a little strangled. 

“Oh, Steve,” Bucky says, leaning back on the sofa. He adjusts his waistband, very carefully so as not to ruin the moment. It’s time. “I really wish I could, baby. I do.” 

He sits up straighter - not that it moves the mound of his belly much. 

“I’m just.” He takes a deep breath - 

“So,” he stretches his arms up over his head.

“Full,” he says as he pushes just that extra bit he needed, too much, finally, for the threads of his jeans to hold on. The button falls lose with a tiny pop of thread, bouncing down off Bucky’s thigh. 

Steve groans low in his throat and his eyes flutter closed, eyelashes impossibly long across his cheeks. 

Bucky grins. “You alright there, Stevie?”

Steve shakes his head slowly, breathing very intently. 

“Well,” Bucky says, “Get over here then. I can fix that, get you feeling real good, but I sure as shit ain’t moving after all that.”

* * *

“Hey, Buck?” Steve whispers. 

Bucky thought he’d been asleep, worn out after their big night. “Yeah?”

“Do you,” Steve yawns. “Do you remember back when we first moved in together and I found the pictures?” He leans up on one elbow, propping his head up with his hand. 

“The slutty pictures of my six-pack?”

“They weren’t slutty.” Steve frowns.

Bucky can hear the disapproval in Steve’s voice. “They were.”

“They were hot,” Steve argues. 

"Didn’t say they weren’t,” Bucky says, smugly. He loves making Steve trip over his own ridiculous self-righteousness. 

Steve sighs and sits all the way up, leaning against the headboard. “Anyway, remember how you said, then, that. Well, that,” Steve pauses and stumbles over his words.

Bucky remembers. “That that’s the me you should be with, and not this.”

“Yeah. Which, hi, I’m Steve, have we met?” Steve holds his hand out for an introductory shake.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky waves him away. He stretches, still a little uncomfortably bloated, his ridiculous dinner sitting heavy in his stomach.

Worth it, though.

“So I was wonderin’. What did. When did. How, uh.”

“How did I gain fifty pounds when I didn’t have your dick influencing everything around us?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“First leave after a rough op.” Bucky says, rolling over and pulling Steve down, his ample front to Steve’s back. It’s easier to talk about it if Steve isn’t scrutinizing his every blink.

“You don’t have to -” Steve starts.

Bucky kisses him on the crown of his head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

He didn’t call it a depression, but only because he didn’t have the therapy vocabulary for it yet. Things were bad, they’d lost some people, shot a bunch of others, didn’t get the intel they were after, and found out later it hadn’t even mattered one way or the other. 

The worst of it was that he hadn’t really moved out on his own, staying on base when he had downtime, but he really needed to not … do that this time. He went home to his mom’s, and their house was too big and too small at the same time. The mission had been classified of course and he couldn’t tell his mom about it even if he’d wanted to, which he very much did not. 

She just kept pestering him about it. “I hate to see you like this, James.” “Maybe you should just try to stop thinking about it, James.” “This is why I never wanted you in the military, James.” 

She meant well. She was his mother and she loved him and only wanted the best for him. Really. And if he kept telling himself that he could make himself not scream at her to just leave it alone already. 

His sister still wasn’t talking to him, fifteen and nursing a six year old grudge, still processing her feelings of betrayal that he left without telling her. He’d have done it differently, if he had a chance to do it all over again. But at the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing to do. 

She’d walk into the room where he was and say, “Oh, you’re still here? I thought you’d have left since I was out.” and “When are you going back? Or can you not tell me that, either?” She slammed the door coming home from school and startled him out of his thousand yard stare and threw him right into a panic attack. 

When he found her afterward to try to explain to her what happened, she looked at him and said, “You knew what you were signing up for, Bucky. Don’t ask me to feel bad for you now that you have to live with the consequences.” As soon as she said it he could see her realize she’d gone too far, or at least that she hadn’t truly meant it, but she just closed her mouth and stalked back out of the room.

He didn’t blame her. She was a kid. 

He stopped coming out of his room for the most part after that. He’d order a couple pizzas while Amelia was at school and his mom was at work and he’d tip extra if the delivery guy would bring him a couple of six packs as well. They’d been on the team together in high school and Bucky was able to turn on the charm enough to talk him into it for “old time’s sake. For a vet, man. Do it for your country, you lineman piece of shit,” he laughed, and hoped the dude didn’t notice it probably didn’t reach his eyes. 

He’d eat, drink, sleep, repeat. He gained just enough that he could feel it in the way his pants fit. They weren't even tight. They just fit  _ differently _ . 

“Did you like it?” Steve asks, startling him back to the present. He realized he’d stopped talking a long time ago. 

“Yeah, actually. I did. I felt. Heavy. Real. Like I. Like I actually existed,” Bucky huffs air out of his nose, something that might want to grow up to be a laugh. “Had nightmares for five nights straight after I first noticed.  Nightmares where I was heavy and moving in slow motion and everyone I knew died. Which is a common stress and anxiety dream, I know, but. I wasn't in therapy, it fucked with my head.”

“Yeah but I saw your pictures. You didn’t keep it, even though you liked it.”

Bucky really, really wants a cigarette. “Didn’t like it enough to wake up screaming because of it. Handled it the same way I always did. Went back to base and doubled down on the training and working out.”

“Did you lose all the weight?”

“No. Added muscle. Thought maybe the heavy, real feeling would stay. It did, kind of, but the important thing was being strong. So I got strong. Built muscle and strength and focused on stamina. And a lot of this - most of it - you know, was subconscious. I didn’t even realize the food thing, the comfort and then the panic, I didn’t know what I was doing until much later when I stopped doing it. Because. You gotta remember, Stevie. It's something  _ everyone  _ did. You get a shit ton of eighteen year old boys together, they  _ eat _ , you know? A lot. And then the training part. Everyone in my life, everyone I knew. Not to the same extent obviously, but I was an athlete and in the military and spec ops. These are guys who do fifteen mile runs at dawn for  _ fun _ . They have push up contests to settle their bar tabs. One time a guy bet me he could do more sit-ups than me and halfway through he threw up and  _ didn’t stop _ .”

“Ew.”

“Well. We were drunk.”

“Still.”

“It’s a lot of hurry up and wait. You know what passes the time? Working out. Relieves stress, gives you something to think about, gives you something to do. Gives you an excuse not to go home to an empty house or bunk or bar. Honestly didn’t realize I was a little more restrictive, a little more extreme, a little more intense until I got put on desk duty. And then I got hurt and couldn’t do much for a long time but eat and drink and sleep. And then it just. Wasn’t. I liked it. I liked me.”

“I like you, too.”

“And this.” He lightly slaps his belly.

“Bonus. Not the point though,” Steve says, settling in and already drifting off to sleep, his curiosity sated for the night. 

Bucky leans over to kiss the crown of Steve’s head again. He definitely still has nightmares, probably always will. They were a problem before the military, and what he did there certainly didn’t help matters but it didn’t cause all of his issues. He’s always had an overblown sense of responsibility, starting with picking up his mother’s slack. 

He made the football team and wanted to be a good teammate. He didn’t want to let anyone down. The guys,  especially the ones who were even a little serious about it - and it was small-town Indiana, there are only a few ways out, and an athletic scholarship is at the top of that very short list -  got real into diet, training, body-building, and nutrition. With his body's natural inclination toward holding onto any extra weight and his round little baby-face, he got a little obsessed with it. 

It was even more extreme in the military where people could have literally died if he wasn’t in tip-top physical condition. They called it dedication, and his superiors - coaches, trainers, officers - all praised him for it. 

Now, though, he’s carrying around a hundred extra pounds, and no one’s going to die.  

So he when wakes up from a nightmare and doesn’t know where he is, he can feel his stomach sticking out in front of him and he knows he's safe. His friends are safe. Steve’s safe. And he’s pretty damn big, but he’s  still pretty damn strong. No one's gonna get to his friends without going through him first. No one’s gonna get to Steve without going through him first. Who’s even going to try?

* * *

Bucky startles awake, pulling his hands in against his chest once he’s rational enough to know he’s not under attack. At first he thinks it’s just another nightmare, all that dredging stuff up from his past coming back to bite him. 

But then he hears his phone vibrating around on the floor, dragging the charger along like a tail. 

“Mmph,” Steve says. 

“Phone. ‘Lo?”

“Bucky? Get Steve, come to the hospital.”

“Natasha? You ok? You never call. What’s -”

“It’s Coulson.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Phillip J Coulson, of  _ those  _ Coulsons, can’t say he hasn’t lead an interesting life. If it all ended today, well, he wouldn’t be happy about it, but he’s had a fair shake. There’s nothing to really worry about. Clint will be financially taken care of, of course, and his friends will help pull him through the toughest of times. Phil’s not naive; he’s eleven years older than Clint, and while his family history indicates he’s in store for a long life, the math is still on the side of Clint spending at least a few years without him. He’s not happy about it, but he learned a long time ago not to fight against things he can’t control.

All in all, if he has to have a conversation with Saint Peter, or weigh his soul against a feather, or whatever, he’s pretty confident in his choices. He’s got regrets, no one makes it half a century without a few. Mostly, he’s a little ashamed of the way he disposed of people in his younger days. He never lied or told them there was anything more to it than what it was, and he was very careful physically, but he wasn’t always careful with their emotions. At the start of the night it added to the appeal, but there’s only so long being a complete asshole worked in his favor.

He was angry as a younger man, a lot like Steve, actually, without the support system. Steve took his rage out on injustices in the world. Phil Coulson had a much narrower target.

The Coulsons, and their social set, bred cut-throat competition like thoroughbred racing horses - which they also bred. Or paid people to breed, not doing any of the actual work but taking all the credit for the results. Using people, climbing over them without regard to the damage he was inflicting, making connections regardless of personal feelings, these are all things Phil learned how to do before he learned how to ride a bike. 

For a while, he played the bad boy to his rebellious prep school peers, the ones who wanted to walk on that side of the street for a while, but were too scared to actually head to a greasy dive bar and actually pick someone up. 

Then he moved on to those wanted to bring him home to rile up Daddy, or to play pretend with someone playing at being rough trade. The thing about bad boys is they aren’t marriage material, and when the threats to the trust fund come out, rough trade gets traded in. Even if Phil’s version of rough trade was cutting the sleeves off his Brooks Brothers shirts. 

Phil met the first guy he ever Dommed a month after he met Nick Fury. Phil was seventeen if he was a day but his fake was the best Nick’d ever seen. (Phil made it himself. At the actual DMV. A little B&E was a lot easier back in the day.) Nick originally dismissed him as Poor Little Rich Boy, mad at the world for giving him so very much, which he was, but when Phil got a couple of watered down (not that he could tell at the time) drinks in him, when he’d let himself mellow and relax, he and Nick quickly developed a friendship.  

Nick later told him it was strictly because felt it was his duty to ensure the balance of dick to non-dick in the world when presented the opportunity. So he kept overcharging (and pocketing the extra buck or two) and giving him watered down drinks, kept an eye on him, offered guidance when possible. 

Phil had come in to the bar, pissed at his parents for planning out his whole future for him. Apparently he was going to be a lawyer whether he wanted to or not, even if his father had to drag him to class and sit on him to keep him there. It was halfway to midterms, senior year, and Phil was already bored out of his mind with his classes. He'd started writing and selling term papers for classes he wasn't even in just for something to do. 

Instead of finding an annoyed but sympathetic ear and maybe some harsh advice, Phil learned it was Nick's night off. He’d switched with the new guy so he didn’t have to work Friday night alone. Phil stared into his stupid drink while some kid with a roll of quarters discovered  _ Girlfriend in a Coma _ and  _ Lips Like Sugar _ and  _ Strangelove  _ on the jukebox and Phil really, really needed to hit something. 

“Hey, jukebox hero,” Phil called out, pulling his leather gloves tight, looking up from his actually strong Jack and Coke. New Bartender apparently couldn't spot a fake ID and Nick apparently barely waved the bottle over Phil’s glass.

Phil swayed just a little and steadied himself against the bar. The kid, probably a good five years older than Phil but slender, still hoping for a late adolescence growth spurt, now just a reedy little nerd with Robert Smith hair and Elvis Costello glasses. He peeked over his shoulder at Phil, then defiantly shoved another quarter into the jukebox. Probably to play some Pet Shop Boys or New Order. 

Nick kept a fucking fantastic jukebox.

Phil caught movement out of the corner of his eye and had to change his trajectory. Good, he thought, because no way was the little runt going to be enough of a fight to make him feel sane again, give him something to control. The new player in this little game was a big guy, built like an olympic weightlifter who spent some time in the army and then had a football playing, pro-wrestling baby with a mountain. 

Just what Phil was looking for. He cracked his neck while the big guy looked to the little guy and got a nod in return. Great, two-for-one.

“Please don’t speak to him like that. He’s just playing some music. You can have the jukebox when he’s done,” Big Guy said. 

“Aren’t you the polite little watchdog,” Phil sneered. And then he threw a punch. 

Afterward, sitting in the holding cell while the little guy bailed out his boyfriend (and Phil, surprisingly), they got to talking. “You don’t have to start bar brawls to get this, you know.”

“Do get but?” Phil asked nasally, pinching his nose to try to stop the flow of blood. 

“Oh, you don’t know, you poor thing. Listen, when Johnny gets back here, just hear him out okay? Trust me. You’re going to like what he has to say.”

“Fuck, man, are you  _ hitting  _ on me?” Phil asks, incredulously. “Now?  _ Here _ ?” 

“Oh,  _ honey _ ,” the guy said. “Oh, honey.”

Little guy - Johnny - and his “sub,” the guy says, although his name is Ben - took Coulson home and showed him the ropes. Metaphorically and literally. 

The pieces fell into place, everything suddenly made sense as Coulson fell in love with the feeling of having someone in his control, being the one to decide  _ when  _ and  _ how  _ and  _ where  _ and  _ why _ . For anything. For everything. 

“You’re a natural,” Ben said, coming back down with a glass of juice while Coulson basked in this, whatever this feeling of utter and complete rightness was. But he burned his way through the scene, moving on to the next sub, and the next, and the next. He never allowed himself to make a connection, kept a part of himself locked away, never took it beyond the physical release of  _ now  _ and  _ need _ . 

He was good, dedicated and practiced. He channeled every ounce of pent-up energy into learning control. He learned how to sit at dinner and listen to his father praise his new-found maturity and dedication. He called it obedience once, and Phil almost, almost lost the composure he’d been working on, thinking how he’d said those exact same words to a pretty young thing he’d tied up just a few hours before _. “Beautiful, you’re just so obedient for me.” _

“We are just so glad you’ve outgrown your rebellious streak, Phillip. Honestly, we were near to the end of our rope,” his mother chided, speaking more to her martini than to him.

Phil just nodded and worked on keeping his face bland and impassive. 

He had a technique that made every sub in his circle want to play with him. But they’d never stick around, Phil wouldn’t really let them get attached, because once he figured them out (and really, they were all just so easy to read), Phil eventually found it just as unfulfilling as picking bar fights had been. 

He grew tired of always being on display, always being a show piece. If he wanted that, he could have gotten it at home, at the debutante balls and cocktail parties his mother forced him to attend - “for the good of the family name, Phillip, if you can’t bring yourself to think of anything else”.  

He blamed it on splitting his focus, on trying to be all things to all people all the time. He was so tired of never feeling that rush, chasing that particular dragon, and he decided he’d grown beyond what the scene could give him. He figured he’d grown up, maybe it  _ had _ been a phase, maybe god forbid, his father was right and destiny was destiny for a Coulson.  _ Want _ didn’t play into it. “There were things that simply must be done, and honestly, Phillip, things could be so much worse. Think of how much you’ve been given. Stop being such a child.”

He turned that legendary focus on school. He learned that what had always come easily for him and kept him effortlessly in the tops of his classes also came easily to the tops of every other school’s classes, and at Harvard Law, those people, the competition, also  _ tried _ . 

He wanted to be the best - a Coulson (whether he wanted to be affiliated with Those Coulsons or not, he  _ was  _ one) would never settle for less than the best. Focus was paramount. He told himself he didn’t have time for a relationship, he certainly didn’t have time to tell someone else what to wear and how to act and when to come and how to sit.

He told himself he didn’t miss it. He’d been a kid, playing. Everyone experiments in college.

He was a first year associate, in  _ contracts _ , he was a  _ nobody,  _ but not for long. He worked eighteen-hour days, he was the most organized lawyer in the department, possibly the firm. His workload was nearly double that of his closest colleague. He saved the firm almost seven hundred thousand dollars in his first year alone just by catching and closing a couple of loopholes. A senior partner called him “good man” on Tuesday and invited him to lunch in the executive boardroom with the other hand-picked potential future hotshots. 

His father gave him a cigar and a Scotch and his mother threw a party for him to meet eligible women. She even invited a few men. 

In the partner’s lounge, caught halfway between explaining his methods, again, and reaching for another shrimp puff, he recognized one of the other invited associates from a party he’d been to with Ben and Johnny and Nick. Phil froze, remembering the guy strung up, sobbing “green, green” while his Domme left a beautiful waffle pattern of marks across his back. But the guy just nodded, shook Phil’s hand, and kept his distance throughout the rest of the lunch.

It was fine. He was fine. He didn’t miss it. He didn’t keep replaying that night over and over in his mind. He didn’t skip the end of the lunch, head to the closest washroom, take himself in hand at the memory. He didn’t think about walking over to the guy, learning his name, leaning in close and whispering, “come with me.”  

He was fine.

He was fine at work, he was fine at home, and he was fine when he told Nick he was fine.

Nick slapped him across the back of his head, handed him a jack and coke and told him to tell the truth or become a better liar. “You’re a lawyer for christ’s sake.”

“I do contract law, not trial law. My specialty is precise wording, not spin. What do you want from me?”

“What do I want from you? Uh-uh, pretty boy. You are not the center of my universe. I have bigger problems than you on the South Side.”

“Nick -”

“It’s called compartmentalization, Phil. Go find a pretty sub and get the fuck out of my bar. Your moping is making everyone sad.”

“This shitty fake grunge is making everyone sad,” Phil said. “You used to keep such a good collection, Nick.” Phil looked plaintively toward the jukebox. “I miss the old days.”

Nick raised a glass with him. “The old days I practically lived here, and wasn’t ass deep in grad school.”

And then Nick introduced him to a guy who knew a guy whose girlfriend was into the scene, and she introduced him to her ex and Phil rediscovered the thing that had been missing. No amount of throwing himself into his work could ever match  _ this _ . That girl actually left the friend of the friend - not for Coulson, their relationship had been on the skids for a while, but then she and Coulson ended up together and it was a whole very public, very intense thing. The community was small, before the internet, they were all people who knew people who knew them. The break up, who-left-who-for-who drama kind of divided their little circle of friends. Phil was back on display, and this time not for his prowess, although that was certainly a matter of discussion, and when the fog of finally, finally having this again wore off he was as uncomfortable as he’d ever been. 

Then she found the next new best thing anyway and Coulson learned that A. the rumor mill isn’t always wrong, B. people very rarely change, and C. being the center of attention is most assuredly not for him. He’d be better with a partner more like him, someone content to stay in the background, blend in, play in the shadows. Someone who understood subtlety.

He met Audrey through a work function, hit it off, and he thought, okay, I can work with this. They were compatible. She was beautiful, she was respectable. She didn’t flinch at the cost of his suits, she knew how to smile and shake hands and make the right kind of small talk. Their parents belonged to the same club, and her aunt was on some of the same committees as his mother. 

Phil did care for her deeply. She wasn’t really very adventurous, in any aspect of their lives. She was pragmatic and sensible, and Phil had just made junior partner and didn’t have time for anything but really-quite-satisfying-if-routinely-vanilla sex anyway. 

“Phil, you dumb motherfucker.” Nick shook his head, offering up a box of donuts.

“Talk to your charges with that mouth? Only reason we’re even talking right now is your appointment ‘just happened’ to be near my office.” Phil spoke the air quotes into existence.

“Shit, those kids at the group home have taught me a few inventive swears I ain’t never heard before. Can I help it if saving the world is taking up a large portion of my time?”

“How’s it really going, anyway?” Phil asked. He really did want to know, Nick was his best friend, and nothing has a quicker burn out rate than social work. But if getting Nick to talk about putting together initiatives to save the world got him off of Phil’s back, even better. 

About a month after he realized Audrey had gradually just moved most of her day-to-day things into his condo, Phil figured they were on the right time table for him to ask her to move in officially. She said yes, and he pressed, that night, for just a little more in the bedroom. 

“How about we mix it up, make tonight even more special?” he said. 

She never actually giggled, but it was close when she smiled slyly and replied, “What did you have in mind?”

He’d thought he explained it to her, he’d thought he was thorough, and she seemed like she was on board, she really did. 

Phil held her hands above her head, pressed her wrists hard into the mattress, and she moaned,  _ oh  _ how she moaned. Noises he’d never heard her make before.

Phil came harder than he had in their entire relationship to that point. 

The next morning, when he leaned in to kiss her in front of the coffee pot, she flinched. 

They really never recovered after that and she moved the last of her things out quite a bit faster than she moved them in. “I think we just want different things, Phil.”

His mother’s disappointment was palpable. "You couldn't just make it work, Phillip?" 

"I didn't make her happy, Mother."

"Oh, what does happiness have to do with marriage? She's good for your  _ future _ , Phillip. Honestly."

Phil handed his mother another martini.

He lived in ever-increasing seclusion, working himself bald and keeping himself available on an as-needed basis for a few select submissives he’d help out, people Nick vetted and passed along to him, and that was fine. He wasn’t sure he’d ever want someone to keep all for himself. It just wasn’t for him. And if those feelings ever got to be too much, well, that’s why Phil started writing, isn’t it? 

* * *

“I need an assistant.” This was Nick’s greeting as he swept into Phil's office.

Phil’s stopped asking how Nick gets past his firm’s security. “Always nice to see you, too, Nick. And you can’t have Natasha.”

“Not that kind of assistant. And I can have Natasha any time she wants.”

Phil nodded, because that much is true. If and when Natasha wants something she can’t get for herself, it’s Nick she seeks out. 

“The classes at the store, my teacher dropped out. Her sub is pregnant, and apparently the smell of leather makes her vomit. Can’t even come into the display room, let alone participate in demonstrations.”

“It’s like rain on your wedding day,” Phil replied, backspacing to correct the contract to read  _ party of the first part _ .

Nick continued, “I can handle the demo portion, but I need someone to tie up.”

“I’m not a sub,” Phil said, finally looking up. His office door was thankfully closed. The firm is discreet but leverage is leverage. 

“Which is why you’re perfect. You won’t get lost in the sensation and you know what I’m trying to accomplish. And technically, you’re as proficient than I am.”

“I think Audrey would disagree.”

“Audrey was six years ago, and what happened was not your fault.”

“It was my scene, so it was entirely my fault.” Phil stood abruptly and stalked to his filing cabinet. 

“I’m not asking you to get back into the scene, Phil. I’m asking my oldest friend for a favor which he is uniquely qualified to perform. Also, Natasha said if I don’t get you out of the office, she’s going to switch you to decaf.”

“Traitorous heathen,” Phil said. “I’m glad she’s a temp.”

Nick nodded once, decisively, and Phil knew he’d just agreed.

He made a really good demonstration sub, because he's not a sub. Being hit with a flogger does nothing for him, not even under Nick's masterful hand (for demonstration purposes) and especially not under timid, novice hands (for instructional purposes.)

He buried himself in his work, and when that wasn’t enough to satisfy him, he kept himself busy with mundane, mindless tasks. His house was spotless, cleaned with intricate unitask machinery he found in catalogs during sleepless nights. He detailed his car himself, every week. He started writing as an outlet for some of this useless knowledge he had after he overheard a conversation about some of the popular BDSM fiction that was circulating the office breakroom. Nick left social work and bartending to start an independent record label of all things, and teamed up with Natasha to convince Phil to come along. 

Then Natasha set him up on a date.

Phil's relationship with his parents remained at "happy birthday” or “merry Christmas” phone calls. Phil always tried to hang up before they started in on how disappointed they were that Phil couldn’t make it work with Audrey. 

He didn’t always succeed. 

“Audrey’s married with three kids now, Mother.”

“Well what about our friend’s niece / cousin / ex-sister-in-law’s college roommate’s daughter? Phillip, when will you realize the advantages marriage will have for your career?”

“Have a good summer, Mother.” Phil had called to tell them he met someone, but hung up instead.

When he decided to propose to Clint, the first time, he imagined the scandal it would be for one of his parent’s friends to see the announcement in the paper and for his parents to not even have been introduced to his husband. The thought made him smile, but he did try to rise above that kind of pettiness. 

Phil and Clint went to visit. Clint was so nervous he sat stone still, and said a total of fifty-eight highly rehearsed words all night. 

  * "Thank you for inviting me."
  * "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. Sir."
  * "You have a lovely home."
  * "Dinner looks delicious."
  * “Yes, thank you.”
  * “We met while I was getting my MBA.”
  * “Yes, for Tony Stark.”
  * “No, sir, I never met his father.”
  * "Thank you so much for having me. I hope we can do it again sometime."



His parents smiled with their stiff, New England smiles hiding clenched jaws. Phil tried to include them and Clint in conversation, but eventually he got a headache from deciding what was a thinly-veiled insult and what was genuine curiosity. He talked shop with his father until they finished the dessert course (crepes suzette, his favorite from when he was five), skipped after dinner drinks, and left as soon as was polite.

Coulson took Clint back to their hotel after dinner and felt like ten kinds of shit because he couldn’t bring himself out of his own head long enough to calm Clint with a scene the way he promised he would.

Clint kissed him and said, “hey, it wasn’t that bad. They set dessert on fire. That was kinda cool.”

Phil let out a choked laugh and said, “you’re so much better than them, Clint. So much.”

The second time they visited was for Phil’s parents' 50th anniversary. Phil's done the math, and the fact that his 50th birthday will be just seven months later is yet another thing they Don't Talk About. Phil weighed eight pounds when he was born, there’s no way he was a premie. He didn’t particularly want to go, but he couldn’t really justify turning down an invitation from his seventy-three year old mother and seventy-six year old father. Not when they included Clint’s name on the invitation. 

“I’ve never seen my name all calligraphied, boss. It’s loopy. Bet I could write out our names on the cyr wheel? I bet I could!”

He could. He did. 

After the dinner, Phil’s father says, "the men are taking brandy and cigars in the study, the ladies will have wine and gossip in the library. Phillip, my boy, are you with us?"

Clint goes to the library - he's managed to charm Mr. Cooper's third? fourth? wife by finding common ground in dressage, because of course. Phil's father pulled him aside. “He certainly is lively this evening. Perhaps we should have shown him to the stables last time he was here.” 

“Perhaps,” Phil says warily. “Clint grew up around horses.”

“Yes. Well.” His father coughed, once, grabbed Phil by the elbow and pulled him even farther from the doorway. “Phillip, do you really think it's wise to bring your -  _ Clint _ to events like this?” His father hesitated slightly before saying Clint’s name.

Phil played dumb. He’d almost forgotten to expect this, Clint fitting in so much better this time, his nerves seemingly gone and his charm on full display.  “Of course. He’s my partner. We’ve been together longer than the Coopers. All four variations of the Coopers, in fact.”

"Phillip, you know that’s not the same thing,” his father chided. “When all this is out of your system, do you really think they'll let you forget him? Do you want to explain to the partner you'll actually settle down with what the joke is about the time you were slumming it and tried to shock the family with your little circus whore?" 

“This discussion is completed,” Phil said, pushing past his father and into the study. He allowed a respectable amount of time to pass before he excused himself and collected Clint. One, so that he could be sure the conversation will have moved on, and two, Clint really seemed to be having a fantastic time talking about horses, and god knows Mrs Cooper The Fourth didn’t have anyone helping her out in the library. 

“That poor woman,” Clint said on the drive home. “At least I knew they were making fun of me.”

“She’ll figure it out,” Phil said. 

“I feel bad for her,” Clint said. 

“Don’t. Her prenup has an adultery clause and Trib Cooper couldn’t keep it in his pants if forty-five percent of his wealth was riding on it. Which it is.”

“I honestly don’t know if that’s better or worse," Clint said. 

Phil didn’t see his parents again. He didn't go to their funerals.

Clint did. He and the fourth former Mrs Cooper had lunch afterward.

* * *

Phil’s drifting in and out of consciousness, his life not so much flashing behind his eyes but floating past, when he thinks he hears Clint yelling. Someone needs to put him on his knees, he thinks. He really should have told Bucky what to do, but Bucky’s smart. And Steve. Steve’s been with Clint before. Tasha. They’ll take care of him. His boy is in good hands. 


	3. Chapter 3

When Steve and Bucky rush into the waiting room, they hear Clint before they see him. 

“I am next of kin. I am power of attorney. You have the forms. I have the forms and you will let me back there right now or I will sue you. The patient is one of the most well respected lawyers in the country and has contacts you would not believe. And over there, standing with all my friends, here to support us? That’s Pepper Potts - hospital board member. Next to her? Tony Stark. Yes,  _ the _ Tony Stark. So if you think I don’t have enough resources to sue this hospital out of business -”

“Sir,” the doctor comes around the corner. “Come on back. We’re very sorry. I’m sure you understand - “

“Doctor, thank you for all you’ve done, please keep doing it, but don’t say another word.”

* * *

Mack shows up with baked goods and fresh coffee, and god bless him, brings enough for the nursing staff. “Been in my share of hospitals,” he says. “Luckily mostly as a visitor. My mama was one of seventeen, and she was the baby.”

Pepper makes a face in solidarity. “Fifteen aunts and uncles here. We used to wait until mom was on her second glass of holiday eggnog and make her try to list them all in birth order.”

“Oh yeah, that’s the best holiday game. That and making the out-of-town aunties try to remember which cousin you were.”

“Oh, you got me there,” Pepper says, gently nudging Maria awake and passing the pastry box down the line. “I was the only red-headed girl, so no challenge.”

“Not so much a problem in my family. Oh. I, uh. Wasn’t sure what counted as a cookie with you two,” he says, hunching his shoulders uncomfortably when the box gets to Steve.

“Huh? Oh that,” Steve says, grabbing an apple tartlet. “We got over that a few years ago.”

“We?” Bucky asks, going for the ricotta asparagus danish. “You.  _ You  _ got over it.”

"You were there," Steve says, before turning to Mack and taking a deep breath. Bucky rolls his eyes and picks an apricot danish out of the pastry box.

Bucky had remained steadfast in his vow to never eat another cookie that Steve didn’t make for him. Steve rolled his eyes when he bought a package of Oreos on the road and stood in front of Bucky, raising a suggestive eyebrow. “Wanna?”

Bucky turned him down, but grabbed Steve’s hip and kissed his flat stomach through his shirt.  

Steve pulled back and said, “it’s fine, eat the damn cookie.”

And Bucky just shook his head, reached for a handful of chocolate covered pretzels. “What else ya got for me?”

The next time it happened, over pecan sandies Steve picked up at a bakery they found when one of the tattoo shops they were supposed to be visiting had apparently closed for good, it caused one of the biggest fights Steve and Bucky ever had. 

“Fuck you, Bucky, you’re just being stubborn!” Steve yelled.

“I’m being stubborn? I’m being stubborn? Well you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t make this about me.”

“No, of course not, because then what fucking moral high ground would you have?”

And so on and so forth. It went on for a week. A week of the silent treatment is a hell of a long time when you’re stuck in an RV or hotel room and it’s raining buckets outside in a town you’re not from. A hell of a long time. 

Steve slept on the far side of the bed in the RV instead of tucked right up against Bucky, one leg thrown over his hips, thigh snugged up against his belly, and hand spread out, trying to cover as much as possible. Bucky didn’t really have a choice about what side of the bed he slept on - the bed just wasn’t that big. 

“I’ve never seen someone sleep stubborn,” Scott said after he accidentally walked in on them one morning. 

“Wrong RV, Scott,” Bucky sighed.

“Yeah, I got it.” Thumbs up and Scott turned around and face-planted on the barely-a-sofa, snoring and apparently as fast asleep as anyone Bucky’s ever seen, aside from Steve.

They finally stopped for a few days and rented a room in an extended stay hotel - one with a full kitchenette. Bucky wandered around aimlessly in the sort-of drizzly rain, looking for any likely places to film B-roll for the show and mostly just staying out of the way.

When Bucky came back to the hotel, exhausted and both damp and sweaty, Steve was carrying a stack of tupperware that’s damn near as tall as he is. Bucky reached out and helped Steve set the stack down on the table. It’s a promising sign that at least Bucky didn’t want Steve to be crushed to death by baked goods. The foundation of any solid marriage.

“Don’t say anything, okay?” Steve said. 

“Where did you get all this?” Bucky asked.

“Target’s across the street.”

“Huh. Damn things are everywhere.”

“Yeah, big box stores are bleeding mom and pop - not the point. Okay. Now don’t say anything, okay?”

Bucky sat down on the bed and stared at his hands. His nails were ragged and bitten. He did that when he was trying not to start smoking again.

“So you probably weren’t still making fun of me.”

Bucky didn’t look up. He didn’t move at all, and Steve took that as a cue to keep going. 

“With the cookie thing. Which is really a Jeanie thing. Which is really a Steve’s insecure thing.”

A hint of a smile made its way onto Bucky’s face. “No, you?”

“Which then became a Bucky tries to do something nice for Steve thing and I’m going to stop talking in third person now.”

“Probably for the best,” Bucky said. 

“But then it just kept going, because you’re good at keeping promises. And I’m a stubborn jackass. But now we live on an RV.”

“I’m aware.”

“It doesn’t have an oven.”

“Also aware.”

“Can’t bake cookies without an oven.”

“There’s no-bake cookies,” Bucky pointed out, mostly just to be an asshole.

“I actually have some of those,” Steve said, digging through the stack of containers. “I like it when you, you know, eat cookies.”

“I’d noticed.”

“Also you like cookies. Not everything is about me.”

“That’s some healthy progress, Steve. I think we’ve made a real breakthrough today.” The words were shitty, but when Steve looked over, Bucky smiled at him, taking any sting out of it.

“I am apologizing to you for being a super dick, so I’m going to let that slide. So,” Steve took a deep breath. “I wanted you to have cookies, and I changed the rules without telling you, and you didn’t know, but I took it the wrong way, because, you know. I do that.”

“You do.”

“So that makes it my turn to apologize, and I am sorry, by the way, and I wanted to do something nice for you. So here.” Steve gestures to the pile of plastic containers on the table. “Steve-scout cookies. And I gave the local troupe a stupid amount of money in both our names to go forth and promote lesbianism and witchery. But only if you’ll think about maybe eating other people’s cookies when we don’t have time or resources to bake.”

Later on that night Scott pounded on their shared wall, “Guys I’m glad you made up but please,  _ please  _ go to sleep now.”

“Fun story,” Mack finally says, after a long pause. 

Bucky shrugs. “Uncomfortable sex stories at inappropriate times come with the territory.”

“So, are you guys taking the buyout or starting up the good fight?” Mack asks, sliding into the sofa next to Bucky. 

Bucky straightens from stretching out his back, twisting left and right and bending over, rounding his shoulders. “The what?” 

“The buyout?” Mack says, looking from Bucky to Steve and back again. “From the development company? Who want to bulldoze the block … and put up a highrise … that you obviously know nothing about.”

Bucky swings his head slowly around to look toward the other side of the room. “Tony? Steve? Something you forgot to tell me?”

“So, Bucky, remember that meeting I set up with Steve yesterday before all this went down,” Tony says, his shoulders hunched up around his ears. 

Steve rushes to talk over him, “Buck, I was gonna, but the lasagne.”

“Yeah. Not now, Steve,” Bucky sighs. “Bigger fish.” 

* * *

“He’s going to be fine, Clint,” Natasha says. Again.

“But what if -”

Natasha pokes him in the chest. “No. No what-ifs. He’s going to be fine. The doctor said it, he said it, the tests prove it. Go home. Take a shower. Change clothes. Eat something.”

“You’re not my Dom,” Clint mutters.

Natasha raises an eyebrow. 

“Anymore,” Clint corrects. 

Steve and Bucky exchange a glance that very clearly communicates the conversation, “Did you know?” “No, I didn’t know. Did  _ you  _ know?” before Bucky grabs Clint in a gentle headlock. “Come on. I’ll tell Coulson if you don’t,” Bucky says. 

“No, don’t! I’m going, I’m going. Don’t bother Phil, Bucky.”

“Go on,” Natasha says. “They’re keeping him one more night just for observation, and he’ll be ready to go home tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be here just in case. Go to my house. Bucky, let him shoot things until he’s sleepy. Then put him down for a nap.”

“I’m not a child, Nat,” Clint pouts.

Natasha gives Clint a capital-L Look.

“Yeah, okay.”

“And take a shower!”

* * *

Bucky checks over the weapons while Steve sets up the targets in Natasha’s basement shooting range. Because Natasha is exactly the kind of person to display her collection of crystal ducks in her dining room, and have a shooting range in her basement. 

“Standard HORSE rules,” he says, and Clint nods. Steve keeps score on the whiteboard. 

The first round Clint takes easily, because he’s the best shot Bucky’s ever seen, and also Bucky’s having to readjust his stance with the extra weight he’s put on.

But the next round they’re tied, and the round after that, and the round after that. Clint’s in the zone, and Bucky knows he’s finally quieted his brain, the physical repetition of aim, breathe, fire, rest easing his thoughts. 

Bucky usually only goes shooting with Clint, sometimes Natasha, and very rarely Maria. Steve’s never seen Bucky shoot without other stuff to distract him. 

“You alright over there, Stevie?” Bucky shouts to be heard over their ear protectors. Then he grins, vollying off another round of shots that perfectly intersect with the diagonal line Clint shot into the target, making an X.

“Yeah.”

“You’re breathing kinda hard.”

“Stevie li-ikes gu-uns” Clint sing-songs. 

“I do not!”

“You do.” Clint shoots a ring around the outside of the next target. “You lo-ove them. You’re gonna join the NR-”

“Clint Barton, I love you and you are having a difficult time right now, but if you finish that sentence I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

Clint breaks form to look over at Steve. “That’s fair.”

“Coulson helped me, you know. With the shooting thing,” Steve says, after Bucky completed his ring around the inner circle and everyone took their ear protectors off for good.  

Steve had been unaware that shooting kink could be a thing, but damned if he doesn’t have one. If there was a way to watch Bucky eat and shoot at the same time, Steve might actually combust. It’s not that he thinks guns are sexy, or knives are sexy, or weapons are sexy. Violence is only  _ sometimes  _ the answer, and violence for violence’s sake is a huge capital-T Thing he’s fought against his whole life.

Steve’s protested against gun violence and and he’s argued for gun control and he’s marched and shouted and yelled himself hoarse. There is almost nothing he hates more than being a hypocrite. 

But when he realized how incredibly turned on he is when Bucky can, say, pick Clint up and throw him into the lake without so much as breaking stride, or when he shoots things with pinpoint accuracy - he doesn’t get into the crazy trick shots Clint does for shits and giggles (unless Clint is goading him into it, and then they’re off - Clint’s better at the tricks, but so far Bucky’s hit every target Clint’s thought of. Bucky, when he’s just shooting, goes for quickness and precision and it’s  _ amazing _ .) - he felt like a huge ass. A huge, hypocritical, violence-and-gun-loving ass.

And of course he buried that underneath workaholism and snippiness - because it’s not like Steve was going to admit that he’s stupidly turned on and feeling bad about it and let it turn into another porn situation or kink misunderstanding or have Tony take out yearly subscriptions to every food-related magazine he can find - some of which aren’t even published in the States. Not again. 

Eventually Coulson cornered him at the club and said something strange and halting about Clint’s affinity for excel spreadsheets and fountain pens and how it’s all related to cake. Steve tried to follow along, but he didn’t have much luck. Finally Coulson sighed and pushed Steve into Tony’s office. 

“Here,” he said, pulling up an internet article about competence kink. “It’s like you’re a hundred years old or something, Steve. Use the computer for something other than photoshop and learn a thing.”

Clint grins as Steve finishes telling the story. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. Then he starts crying. 

“Come here, Clint,” Bucky says, holding his arms open. “Come on, get in here.”

“Been holding that in for a while, huh?” Steve asks, somehow joining the hug and leading them all inside at the same time. 

Clint sniffs and nods.

“Nap?” Steve suggests.

“Nap,” Bucky confirms. 

“Coulson -” Clint starts, but Bucky cuts him off. 

“Would want you rested when you go pick him up.” He’s using that no-nonsense tone he gets sometimes, and Clint apparently knows better than to argue. 

* * *

“Stark bought an amphitheater next to the fairgrounds,” Natasha announces, slipping through the door to Coulson’s hospital room seconds before the discharge nurse comes in with a wheelchair. Bucky and Clint saw her coming, but Steve and Peggy both jump about a mile. “It might be Steve’s birthday present. If it is, act surprised.”

“Just what I never asked for,” Steve mutters. 

“Shit, Steve, your birthday,” Clint says, looking crestfallen.

“It’s not for a few more days,” Steve says. 

“And not the main concern right now,” Peggy elbows Steve in the ribs.

“That’s what I meant,” Steve says.

“We’re playing there next week,” Natasha continues, pointing at Clint and flipping open Coulson’s chart. “You’re on drums.”

“Little busy, Nat.” Clint doesn’t even look up from needlessly adjusting Coulson’s feet on the footrests. 

“You won’t be,” Natasha says at the same time Coulson says, “You should go.”

Clint agrees readily. “Sure,” he says to Coulson without looking at him. He frowns at Natasha, who simply regards him placidly. They stay like that for a long minute, then Clint says, “Bucky, wanna help load in? I can get you backstage.”

Bucky laughs, letting the awkwardness pass without comment. Better to just play along for now. “Usually I have to flash a roadie to get backstage. I’m moving up in the world, Steve.”

“Why did Stark buy an amphitheater?” Peggy asks.

“I only act like I know everything,” Natasha says, sweeping back out of the room as quickly as she entered it. 

* * *

Steve and Bucky pick ToJu and Fabi up from day camp the day before they leave for the Fourth of July holiday. Jo and Fabi had been invited to the lake house, but they were headed out of town. Jo was squirelly about it, but Bucky’s waiting to ask her about it until she comes back. He’ll soften her up with her gift and then try to dig the details out of her. 

ToJu insists they have a “healthy snack” when they get home. 

Bucky teases him about what constitutes a healthy snack. “Are cookies a healthy snack?” 

“No, Uncle Bucky.” 

“Are books a healthy snack?” 

“No, Uncle Bucky. People cannot eat books. That is silly. You are very silly.”

Fabi and Steve talk about the life cycle of a frog. Fabiana is very into frogs. “It’s called herpestologics.”

“Herpetology,” Steve corrects, biting his lip not to laugh.

“That’s what I said. I asked my teacher why it isn't amphibiology for amphibians or why weren’t frogs called herpes, then, and she made that same face!”

“And that is a wonderful question for your mother. Make sure I’m there when you ask her,” Bucky says, leading the kids into the bodega. 

They settle on apples, because the bodega has apples and everyone agrees apples are indeed a healthy snack. ToJu has to have a green one, because he’s only eating green foods on Tuesdays, but the rest of them get red ones. 

“It’s okay to have a different preference. My rules do not have to be your rules, Uncle Steve.”

Bucky is pretty sure ToJu is quoting one of his parents there. “That is very wise, kiddo.”

“Daddy says more people should know that.”

“Which one is daddy?” Steve whispers to Bucky. 

“Bruce,” Bucky whispers back. 

“Your daddy is very smart,” Steve tells ToJu.

“So is my dad,” ToJu says. “My dad is very smart.”

“Sure,” Steve says. 

Steve and Fabi have a stare-down over peeled or unpeeled - turns out they look oddly identical when they cross their arms and pout - so much so that Bucky is complimented not once but  _ twice  _ on his adorable family. “They can be such a handful at that age - especially when they take after their fathers!” laughs the elderly lady buying plums. Bucky just smiles, because it’s true, they  _ are  _ a handful, regardless of how blond Steve is or how very, very not blonde (or biologically related) Fabi is. 

They get back to the apartment and everyone washes up while Bucky convinces Steve that it’s not the babysitters’ problem if all the vitamins are in the peel, their job is just to keep the kids safe and uninjured and  _ not in tears  _ until their parents come to collect them. 

“Fine. When they get scurvy, you’re explaining it to Pepper.”

“Scurvy is fairly rare in the United States, Uncle Steve,” Toju says. “Fairly rare.”

“Ah, that pirate phase is still paying off,” Bucky says, quickly schooling his face when Steve glares at him. He finds a paring knife and starts peeling, and that’s when Steve learns that Bucky can peel an entire apple in one strip of equal thickness in about a minute. 

“There are children present, but we are going to discuss this later,” Steve points at him when Bucky hands the sliced apple off to ToJu and starts in on another for Fabiana. 

“Mommy says that to dad sometimes when daddy says a lot of big words all together,” ToJu says to Fabi, rolling his eyes at the antics of grownups. 

* * *

Coulson really is fine, even if he is under instructions to take it easy for a while. Plans are still on to go to the lake house for the Fourth of July, as always, though they’re skipping the carnival this year. Coulson tried to insist that everyone else go, but Steve said he wasn’t in a very carnivaly mood, and Bucky was silently relieved. 

Steve liked the rides, even though they made him sick about eighty percent of the time, but Bucky was almost positive he wouldn’t be able to fit in the cars this year. 

It’s one thing when he goes out to eat with Steve and picks a table in the middle of the room, and Steve asks him, “What are you doing? You hate sitting with your back to the door,” and Bucky has to answer, “Can’t fit in the booth, Steve.” He doesn’t think he’d recover if he had to get off a ride because he couldn’t fasten the seatbelt or close the door. There’s fun and then there’s humiliation, and for Bucky the two are not on speaking terms. 

They’re on the deck, Phil and Bucky discussing various doctors they’ve seen while Phil reclines in a chaise and Clint sits quietly next to him. Bucky recommends the medical group he’s seeing. “I don’t think you’ll need an orthopedist, but I really liked Dr. Strange.” 

Tony says, "Hey, I know that guy." 

Bucky says, “Yeah, he's a good doctor.” 

Tony makes a face. “He's a dick.” 

“No. He's not,” Bucky says firmly. He’s a little protective of his doctors, since they treat him like a person who is fat, and not like fat that is a person. 

Tony digs in, “He was when we were in college.”

Rhodey pipes up, coming to sit next to Tony at the table with a fresh beer for them both, “So were you.”

“Yeah, but I was thirteen. We were all dicks at thirteen.”

Steve and Bucky at the same time say, “I wasn't.”

“Oh, Steve, come on,” Peggy laughs. 

“Are we talking about you? No. We are talking about me.” Tony barrels right ahead.

“We were actually talking about Dr. Strange,” Bucky says. 

“Well, I don't like that.”

Rhodey pats him on the head. “You never do.”

Peggy speaks up, “Tony, did you meet Strange in high school or college?”

“College. I said college, right? Did everyone hear me say college?”

“I heard you say thirteen,” Phil says. 

“Yes. Col. Lege.” Tony enunciates. 

“Tony skipped a few grades,” Rhodey clarifies. 

“I did not!” Tony interjects. “I didn’t skip them! I just finished them very quickly. I will not allow you to refuse to give me the credit I deserve.”

“Oh no. Did someone say Tony skipped a grade?” Bruce asks, catching himself up on the conversation he’d missed while he was talking to Natasha and Pepper over at the grill. “Has he told you they want to skip ToJu?”

“That’s not his name,” Tony corrects automatically. “And we’re not doing it.”

“He’s bored, Tony,” Bruce says. “He’s bored and he’s capable and he  _ wants  _ to.”

“Does he want to?” Steve asks.

“I don’t care what he thinks he wants, I’m his father and I know better.”

“I’m his father, too,” Bruce says.

“When he wants to join Doctors Without Borders, you can bring your expertise to the table. Until then, I am the only one with experience in  _ this _ , and I say he’s not going to be twelve when he’s in college.”

“People thought I was twelve in college,” Steve raises a corner of his mouth. 

“Yeah, Steve you may have looked twelve when you were in college but at least you were actually twenty. You’d been alive for twenty full years, you’d had twenty years of experience.” Tony points at him. “I was actually, chronologically twelve.

“Do you have any idea how hard that is? How much pressure? How much I didn’t understand? How much I just wanted to fit in, for people to like me, for people to  _ get  _ me? People who weren’t my professors, who were, thanks to Howard and Maria’s generous endowments, basically paid to like me while at the same time terrified of me and so jealous of me they tried to sabotage me at every turn? Do you know what that does to a kid? Do you know? Like fuck I’m going to do that to my own kid. He’ll get his enrichment elsewhere, but he’s staying in the third goddamn grade.”

Once the silence has stretched on uncomfortably long, Phil says, “I’d like to remind everyone that I’m supposed to avoid stress right now.” 

Bucky watches Clint freeze, just for an instant, before he breathes again, but then Rhodey laughs. “Let the kid be the smartest big fish in his little pond, Bruce,” he says. “He can be valedictorian. Like his Uncle Rhodes.”

“Same here,” Phil announces. “Spite is a hell of a motivator.”

“A-fucking-men.” Tony holds his beer out for a cheers. 

“Pepper was valedictorian out of spite to the school,” Bruce says, joining the toast. “She also got the dress code changed to allow girls to wear pants and her grandmother revoked her scholarship. ‘If you’re such a feminist, pay your own way,’ I think were her words. So naturally, Pep did.”

“Of course,” Tony says proudly. 

“I was salutatorian by 0.25 points,” Bruce says, “and I’m still pissed off about it to this day. I know that guy cheated. And I’m pretty sure his senior research project was funded by the military.”

“GED,” Steve shrugs. 

“Cool kids club,” Clint says, and now it’s his turn to cheers with Steve. “Nat, too.”

“I didn’t give a shit,” Sam says. “There were parties to go to, and sports and movies and girls, man! And my parents didn’t care as long as I was ‘trying my best’ and kept my eligibility,” he laughs. 

“Food!” Natasha shouts from over at the grill. “Shut up and eat!”

Most of the group from around the table get up, with Steve telling Bucky, “I got you,” as he heads over. 

Coulson’s fallen asleep, and Clint stays sitting on the floor next to his chaise. “‘M not hungry right now,” he says softly.

“Babe, bring Clint a hot dog,” Bucky calls after Steve.

“Yep!” Steve shouts back. 

“I’ll get up and make Phil a plate when he’s awake,” Clint explains.

“I know, you’re good,” Bucky waves him off. “Steve’ll get you for now.” 

Clint swallows and nods. “Thanks. The doctors said to let him rest.”

“He looks pretty well-rested,” Bucky says. He does. Coulson always sort of looks like he’s at work, even when he’s not working. Like he’s half a second away from standing at attention. But Clint had walked with him out to the deck, hovering a little more than was necessary, fussed over him until he settled in a chair, and then sat still and quiet. Coulson really did look relaxed. Well, he was sleeping now, but even before then. 

Clint, on the other hand. 

“I’ve been trying,” Clint says. He has. He’s been trying to let him rest. He’s been trying to be unobtrusive and self-sufficient and to not ask for anything. Anything at all. The serving part, that’s fine. Almost fun. It’s kind of like what they’ve always done, but also completely different. He likes waiting on Coulson and spoiling him and anticipating his every need, even though that’s not really the dynamic they usually have. 

Not that that matters. Clint would take care of Coulson no matter what. If he was a ghost and Coulson couldn’t see him or smell him or touch him, he’d still take care of him. 

But it’s wrong. Not  _ wrong _ , just. It’s weird. 

Even with Coulson telling him, “good, good my sweet boy,” and petting his hair. It’s just different. 

Coulson’s pretty easy to take care of. Not like Clint. They’ve been together for a long time. Maybe Coulson is glad to have this break. Probably not the way he would have wanted to go about getting it, but still. A break. 

Clint knows he’s a handful, but once he’s got Coulson (or Coulson has him - depends on who you ask) he pretty much stays out of not-on-purpose trouble. Anything that involves Official Trouble has usually just been him trying to keep Steve from getting his ass pounded (in the bad way). But Steve has Bucky for that now, and Bucky’s really good at it.

Now that all Clint’s needs are met - all of them - he doesn’t really have any reason to do anything bad. He has a house to live in - his name’s on the paperwork or whatever, but it’s not like  _ he  _ bought it, even though Coulson had spent a lot of time trying to convince him that of course it was just as much his as Phil’s, of course it was theirs, and if Clint didn’t like it, they could move, they could find something to make theirs. 

Which was just dumb, because all their stuff was already there and Coulson had everything set up like he wanted and Clint didn’t want Coulson to have to go to any trouble just for him. Also the market was down, and Phil wasn’t underwater, but it was a bad time to try to buy real estate. 

But mostly the Phil’s stuff was all set up thing. 

And Clint has a job and. 

Okay, it’s not like a  _ real  _ job, not really. He’s not a lawyer or a therapist or a tattooer or. Well. Whatever the rest of his friends are. He just does things around the house and runs errands and sometimes he does the books and researches things for Coulson or Tony, and he hangs out with his friends and plays in their bands and sometimes he gets money for all of that. It’s not a job-job, but it beats waiting tables at three different restaurants plus a shift at a hardware store and tutoring archery on top of college classes. Or hustling pool. Or other ... Whatever. It beats a lot of things.

Back at the beginning Coulson spent a lot of time explaining how he thinks the world works - how it works for people like Coulson - and he did that thing where he brought home a fancy dinner from a place that doesn’t usually do take out and made them sit at the dining room table and then he put his hand on top of Clint’s hand and called him by his name a lot and took those long, long breaths before he breathed back out and stood up to refill his drink even though it was already filled when he told Clint he really, truly  _ deserved  _ all the money that magically showed up in his bank account. The deposits that weren’t from his friends overly compensating him for helping them out. That his “contributions to the relationship and the household” were, like, whatever. Important. Meaningful. 

And even though he’d tried to refute it and call it something else, when Clint pressed him on it, Coulson admitted he was, in fact, earning his keep. 

“But, Clint, it’s not a quid pro quo situation,” Coulson insisted.

Clint waved him off with a “yeah, yeah, you’ll keep me around even if I stop sweeping your floors and giving you an all-access pass to this sweet ass.” Which Clint mostly believed, pretty much, especially since Coulson went through the trouble of drawing up spreadsheets and pie charts and graphs showing what it would cost to hire out all the work Clint took care of for them. 

Coulson likes empirical data. They have that in common. 

“Numbers don’t lie, right, Clint?” 

“I thought we established using one’s own words against them was unfair.”

Coulson had smiled. “That’s a Steve-and-Bucky rule, not a Clint-and-Phil rule.”

Clint looks around the dock, at all his friends. At his partner, his Dom, his  _ everything _ , who is recovering from a  _ heart attack _ . “I’m a grown up,” he says after a minute.

Bucky looks around but it’s just the three of them, and one of them is asleep. “I know,” he says hesitantly. 

“No, I mean, like, I am a grown up. I am a grown ass man. I am an adult.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s wild, man.” 

Bucky laughs, “Yeah.”

“Do you. Do you feel like a grown up? Because. You know, I got this thing, kinda. Where I … don’t? But I think. I know, it’s more than most people. And I can never tell when I’m being normal.”

“I didn’t think you cared for being normal.”

“Normal’s boring as fuck, but it’s kind of good to have a baseline. I don’t really have a good. Sense. For these things,” Clint says, picking at the label on his beer. “Just enough to know when I’m. Not.”

Bucky thinks about it. “I don’t think anyone ever feels like a grown up, Clint. I don’t.”

Clint looks up at him. “Really? Wait, in the sex way or the existential way? Because I mean the existential way.”

“That’s the one.”

“Good. I am way too sober to have the sex way talk with you right now.”

“Same,” Bucky says. 

“You’re like, the third most grown up person I know,” Clint tells him, back on track.

“Third?”

Clint starts ticking off on his fingers, “Coulson, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Natasha is a grown up. She did the opposite of me, I think. I got stuck somewhere between six and sixteen and she went straight to, like, thirty-five. I think she had to. But that’s her story to tell. Then you. Oh, and Sam. Sam’s a grown up. Maybe put him third, you fourth.”

“Fourth!” Bucky grabs his chest in mock outrage. “Sam’s an adrenaline junkie whose idea of a good time is jumping out of airplanes.”

“Yeah but he’s got a mortgage and like. Investments.”

“So do you.” Bucky pokes his toes into Clint’s knee. 

“I know! It’s very confusing. Wait, I should get paper. All the women should probably come before any of us. Except maybe Coulson. We know a lot of frighteningly competent women.” 

“What’s this about, Clint?” Bucky asks, even though he’s pretty sure he’s got a good idea.

“Don’t want to play this game with me?” Clint deflates.

“Not when it’s a distraction from what’s really going on,” Bucky says.

“What am I gonna do when I have to be the grown up?”

“I think you do exactly what you’re doing now. You’re good at taking care of Phil, he -”

“No,” Clint cuts him off. “When it’s just me. When. When Coulson. When.” 

“Hey, hey, come here,” Bucky reaches out and waits for Clint to turn around, leaning into Bucky’s leg but keeping his hand wrapped around Coulson’s ankle. “Coulson’s not going anywhere for a long, long time.” 

“You don’t know that,” Clint whispers.

Bucky pauses. “No, I don’t. None of us do. But it’s never going to be just you, you know. I know we aren’t the same, but if you haven’t been able to shake Steve since college, you’re not getting rid of him. And where he goes, I pretty much follow. And you’ve got Nat, and the entire StarkBannerPotts crew. It’s not the same, but it’s never going to be just you.”

Bucky stops smoothing back Clint’s hair and gives it a little tug. “I know what you need. I’ll never take Phil’s place, but we got you. And I promise, none of us will ever make you be the grown up.”

Clint laughs wetly. “I don’t know, man. Between all of us I might actually be the most capable by that point.”

“Hey, maybe we’ll all move in with Wilson, make him do it.”

“You think if I call Sam ‘daddy’ he’ll kick my ass?”

“He would  _ kick  _ your  _ ass _ .”

Clint laughs again, sounding much more like himself. He shifts back over, leaning against Coulson’s chair again. “Okay, your turn.” 

“My turn what?” Bucky asks. 

“Can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Bucky. You got all kindsa demon thoughts in that beautiful head of yours.”

“Nah,” Bucky defers. He turns his body, checking to see where Steve is with his food already. 

“That how you’re gonna play this, Barnes?” Clint narrows his eyes. 

“For now. Let me just. I’ll talk to you if I need to.”

“Fuckin’ better,” Clint says.

“Listen to my boy, Bucky,” Coulson says without opening his eyes.

Clint grins.

“How long’ve you been awake?” Bucky asks.

“Since I moved back over here,” Clint answers for him. “Not for my part,” he mouths soundlessly.

“You’re a sneak,” Bucky mouths back. 

“We prefer the term resourceful,” Coulson says aloud, eyes still closed. 

* * *

“Steve. Steve. Steve.  _ Steve _ . STEVE!”

“ _ What _ , Sam?”

Sam rubs his temples. “Today is a no politics day. I can’t handle it. Not today.”

“How - you know, you  _ know  _ what a privilege it is to say ‘politics don’t affect -”

“I will kick your white boy nonsense  _ ass _ , Steve.”

“Sorry, Sam.”

“Forgiven.” Sam’s feeling generous. The beers are helping. “One. We all need a break. Even you.”

“But.”

“ _ Two _ , we are  _ all  _ on the same side. There’s no one at this party who doesn’t agree with you. You’re wasting your energy, and going around in circles, and raising your blood pressure for nothing. So just shut up, go fix your boy a ridiculous plate or twelve, and  _ relax  _ for one night.”

“You relax,” Steve says petulantly, but Sam’s right. He glances back over his shoulder and it looks like Clint and Bucky are done talking about whatever it is they were discussing. It looked like it got pretty intense for a minute, and Steve dawdled around the grill, prompting his exchange with Sam to try to give them some more time. Well, and also to make sure everyone knows the world is a raging dumpster fire and just because it’s a propaganda holiday doesn’t mean they should stop trying to put that fire out.

He’s not sure if he hopes Clint got Bucky to open up or the other way around. Best outcome would be both, but that’s a little more optimistic than Steve tends to be. 

“Something wrong with that burger, Rogers?” Natasha points an accusatory spatula at him, startling him out of his reverie. In contrast to Pepper’s carefree casual shorts and t-shirt outfit or Peggy’s flawless vintage two piece and victory rolls, Natasha’s managed to somehow split the difference, wearing board shorts and a halter-style bikini top. She still looks like she could end him with just her brain, though. 

“Don’t think so?”

“Then go, shoo. Bucky looks hungry. And take this to Clint,” she hands him another beer. 

Steve gives her a sloppy salute with the bottle then stacks the plate of baked beans and potato salad on top of the plate of burgers and hotdogs. He grabs a bag of chips under his elbow, carefully, so as not to crush them - although then Bucky will just tip it upside down and pour the crumbs into his mouth and that. Yeah. He coughs. He picks up the bottles and heads over. 

He’s pretty okay with himself and the things he likes (though it was an adventure getting there, because people are  _ hard,  _ okay? _ ) _ but he feels really guilty about how sexy he thinks it is when Bucky and Clint grill. They don’t get to do it when the whole gang gets together, because Natasha and Pepper are frighteningly good at it, and they’re frighteningly territorial about the grill at the lake house. But when it’s just Clint and Coulson and Bucky and Steve, Clint and Bucky man the grill and it’s. It’s just  _ hot _ .

And Steve feels, as the kids say, some kind of way about it, because he should be above getting turned on by performative masculinity and gender roles and he doesn’t think Natasha’s sexy when she’s grilling. She’s attractive, because  _ Natasha _ , but she’s not sexy. Ew. She’s like his sister. But whatever it is, fire and heat and smoke and meat and Bucky (and Clint, too, because what? Steve’s got eyes. And a near-photographic memory.) and that’s a recipe for a party in his pants. 

Also, Bucky can eat a _ lot  _ of hot dogs.

* * *

Clint and Coulson excused themselves early, right after dinner, and Tony finally finds them again around sunset, about the time everyone is full and lazy and just the far side of tipsy. He looks a little disheveled and his hair is a mess, which means either he and Bruce were busy, or they were  _ busy _ . Either way he’s in a much better mood. 

“My friends, my friends,” he says, arms spread wide. He looks for all the world like an emperor surveying his kingdom. “Glad we could all gather here, though Coulson,” he performatively raises his voice, as if Clint and Coulson could possibly hear him from there, “we didn’t need your drama.”

“Tony will be handling all the drama around these parts,” Bruce says softly. Pepper hides a giggle into his shoulder and takes another sip of wine. 

“You going to tell us why you bought another concert venue?” Natasha asks.

“I am a patron of the arts,” Tony looks down at his hands. “Also, once the sale goes through, it’ll be the only concert venue I own.”

There’s a moment of quiet, and then Steve speaks up. “You bought an amphitheater by the fairgrounds because you sold your club?”

“Yes. The whole neighborhood is going, Steve, that’s what I was going to tell you. But you kept rescheduling our meeting.”

“I rescheduled because Coulson was dying!”

“He wasn’t dying, he had a mild heart attack. It was a blip!”

“Wait,” Bucky interrupts before Steve can respond. “The whole neighborhood?”

“Yes. I thought you said Coulson filled you in.”

“Our neighborhood,” Bucky says flatly.

“He told me about the developer, he didn’t tell me the sales had gone through!” 

“They haven’t,” Tony says. “Yet.”

“How much of the neighborhood?” Steve asks.

“The parts that matter,” Tony shrugs. “Four blocks, from my club down to the store where that bubbly girl with the bad haircut works. They want to refurb some, keep the old world charm, and the others they’ll tear down. Shopping, dining, condos on top. You know the drill.”

“People  _ live  _ there, Tony! We live there!”

“There’ll be a buyout. I’ve got my people on it. I’ll get a fair price.”

“That’s not the point,” Steve shouts. “They’ll make it - these condos, they won’t be rent controlled, they won’t be affordable. You’re making an entire neighborhood homeless, Tony!” Steve stops yelling, but only because he starts coughing. 

No one else is saying anything. 

“Happy fucking birthday to me,” Steve says, stalking off.

* * *

Clint pauses in mopping Natasha’s kitchen floor. He’d lost a bet, apparently, on the drive home from their interrupted Fourth of July holiday. The StarkBannerPottses stayed at the lake, but everyone else drifted back home, trying to get a jump on strategizing before the city council reconvenes to vote on the development. 

Natasha’s sitting with Coulson at his house while Clint takes care of her household chores. Clint had made them both promise not to work, and Natasha countered with answering emails. Clint negotiated for urgent emails only and they shook on it, a complicated series of hand movements only known to the two of them. 

Bucky’s tagged along because he needed to not be around Tony or Steve for a while and he knows his guilt at breaking someone else’s stuff will outweigh his desire to fucking break some stuff. 

“We’re here until everything on this list is done,” Clint shakes a piece of paper at him, “So you might as well get it over with and tell me.”

“This Tony thing-”

“Not that, the other stuff.”

“Clint, it’s not -”

“I let you get away with that at the lake because I was super worried about Phil and you were being very nice to me and also you were clearly not ready to talk. But Coulson isn’t all the way back to normal physical activities yet and he can’t tie me up and if you put me through the freeze-out-I’m-fine shit you pulled after your honeymoon again he’ll try to kick your ass and Bucky, if you kill my Phil I’ll have to kill you. And then Steve will kill me, and Natasha will kill Steve and. Well, no. I think that would be the end of it, because no one’s getting the drop on Tasha.”

“Breathe, Clint.”

“Four deaths, Bucky. Four deaths.” Clint points the mop at him. “Do you want to be responsible for four deaths?”

“No?”

“I didn’t think so. So spill your guts and tell me what’s got your panties in a twist.”

“I’m too fat for my panties,” Bucky mutters.

“Pretty sure that’s not true,” Clint says. “I mean. You can buy bigger ones.”

“That’s not. You ever think Steve has an upper limit?” Bucky asks. 

“For like. Uppers? Amphetamines? Probably -”

“Me,” Bucky gestures at himself, tip to tail.

“Oh. Your ... Thing.” 

“Yeah.” 

“You know, we’ve never talked about it.” Clint kneels down to scrub at a spot on the floor.

Bucky finishes wiping down the fronts of Natasha’s cabinets. “We you and Steve, or we you and me?” he asks. 

“Either. Both.” 

“Yeah, I guess. Weird that it’s never come up.” 

“I don’t think so,” Clint throws out the disposable mop pad, having to walk over his freshly cleaned floor to do so. 

“Don’t think it’s weird?”

“No, I mean. We don’t really do a lot of in-depth play-by-plays with each other. Like, everyone knows about me and Coulson and what we, you know, do,” Clint frowns at the footprints he left across the kitchen floor. “And we all know about you and Steve, because dude is not subtle.”

“No, he is not.” Bucky trades his dust cloth for Clint’s mop and points him at the curio cabinet.

“Not the ducks, Bucky, they’re creepy,” Clint whines.

“It’s the ducks down here or the clowns she has upstairs.”

“Fuck you,” Clint shudders, and starts carefully dusting Natasha’s crystal duck collection. “I don’t think Steve has any limits. Not when it comes to you, anyway. When me and him - hey I can talk about me and him, right? That’s not, whatever. Uncouth?”

“Nope, go for it.”

“Steve didn’t enjoy sex.”

“The fuck he didn’t,” Bucky says. “Steve doesn’t do things Steve doesn’t want to do, and Steve has had a lot of sex.”

“No, I mean. Steve liked sex. I am very good at it.”

“Same,” Bucky mimes a high-five with Clint from across the room. 

“But Steve liked orgasms, because obviously. And Steve liked telling people what to do.”

“What’s with the past tense, Clint? Steve lives for telling people what to do.”

“True enough. But when we were FWB he was into it, a good time was enthusiastically and ongoingly had by all. But he wasn’t. Into it. Lost in it. Same for me. He’d boss me around, but he didn’t you know. Dominate me. I mean, I didn’t ask him to, because he wasn’t. That wasn’t. We weren’t there for that. So it was good, it was real good, but there was something missing. When he met you, you could just see him light up. And then once you two starting doing it, you could just tell Steve was like, ‘oh, yes.  _ This  _ is what has been missing’." 

Clint puts the last duck back and grins at Bucky. “The thing. Also, you know, falling in love with the right person and intimacy and all that crap. Me and him, we had a good time, but you know there's things that a person can like, but can get off without, and then there's things that are ... like frosting. On a cake.”

Bucky laughs. “What’s with you guys and cake?”

Clint just looks at him.

“Go on,” Bucky says.

Clint wanders into the living room, raising his voice so Bucky can hear him. “You can have a cake, and it’s good, because cake. But then there’s frosting and it’s the thing.”

“The thing,” Bucky says along with him. “Yeah. Got it.”

Clint fluffs the ridiculous number of throw pillows on Natasha’s sofa. He calls into the kitchen, “and I know Steve knew he preferred a thing, but didn't realize that thing was  _ the  _ thing. The thing that took sex from fun to mind-blowing.”

Bucky stops mopping. Looks at Clint as he walks back over to him. 

Clint looks back. Rubs the back of his neck. “Living room’s done. Oh. You go from far corner to the door. So you don’t get trapped. How about that.”

“Clint, you are my best friend,” Bucky tells him. 

“I helped?”

“You helped.”

Clint ducks his head, “Thanks, Bucky.” He bounces up the stairs. “You’re still cleaning the clowns, though!”

* * *

Bucky comes home from Natasha’s to find Steve hunched over his drafting table. “Either do something sexy or go away,” Steve says, not looking up from the papers he’s been studying since they came home from the lake house. 

Bucky grabs his stomach and jiggles it. “That do it for you?”

“Ooh, baby,” Steve says flatly. 

“No luck?” Bucky asks. 

“The buyout is fair, Buck. It’s more than fair. It’s about triple fair. Enough to really set everyone up. Mrs O’Leary, the Kims, Jo and Fabi.”

“Us?”

“I don’t need money, I need my shop. I quit the show to come home to my shop and my shop’s not gonna be here anymore.”

“We can start a new shop. Somewhere else.”

“I don’t want to go somewhere else. I been everywhere.”

“Crossed the deserts bare, man,” Bucky sings. “Yeah, but you open your mouth, and everyone everywhere knows you’re from New Yawk.”

“You’re from Indiana. Say ‘bag’, Buck, I dare you.” Steve sighs. “It’s. It’s a lot of money. Tony said he wanted to give us a chance to look the offer over. If we don’t wanna go, he’ll fight it, but he’ll probably lose even still. And then the offer could drop. And if we accept now everyone has time to move. If we fight it, and we lose, they’ll have only a few weeks.”

“So what do you want to do?”

Steve stands up, stretches his back. “I don’t know. Sleep. We’ll decide in the morning.”

“Sleep?” Bucky asks.  He leans on the back of the sofa and pulls Steve to stand between his legs.

“Maybe not right away,” Steve says. “Tell you what,” he adds, as he takes Bucky’s hands and pulls him over to the bed. 

“I’m listening.” Bucky follows.

“You tell me what’s been eating at you, while I uh. You know.” Steve pushes Bucky down onto the bed and kneels up over him, his words losing confidence even while his actions pick up steam. 

“Eat at me?” Bucky laughs.

“Something like that.” 

“Deal,” Bucky says. He’s planned on trying to broach the subject anyway, and he’s definitely not going to complain that Steve’s giving him this opening rather than him having to try to wrestle one into existence. 

Steve straddles his hips and rubs the soft underside of his belly, slipping the button lose with one hand. “Still got a pair of the old ones?” Steve asks, mostly to himself. 

“Yeah, a couple.”

“Good. You stop talking, I stop doing, got it?”

“Talked to Clint today,” Bucky starts, his hands folded behind his head, eyes closed. Sometimes he just likes to lie back and let Steve have his fun. Good thing, since that’s what Steve’s intent on anyway.

“Mmm?” Steve’s inquiring noise comes from somewhere around Bucky’s left nipple, and then, yeah, there’s tongue, lips, and teeth in that order.

Bucky takes a sharp breath in through his nose. “Bout you, for a lot of it. Back in the day. Dancing in the dark, walking in the park, and reminiscing,” Bucky sings. 

It makes Steve laugh, and he bites a little harder. “Stay on topic,” he mumbles, tugging on the barbell between his teeth. “You big musical weirdo.”

“This is on topic,” Bucky says, hips thrusting up just a little when Steve switches sides. “The topic of you and him, actually.”

Steve looks up. “Me and him? Like,  _ me  _ and  _ him _ ?”

“I thought I was talking, and you were doing,” Bucky says, gently pushing Steve’s head back down. “Yeah.  _ You  _ and  _ him _ , as it relates to you and  _ me _ .”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Steve lifts his head again. “What he and I did isn’t anything like what you and I -”

“They’re your rules, Steve.”

“Right, right,” Steve says and gives Bucky’s dick a couple of quick dry jerks through his boxers. “Happy?”

Bucky presses his lips together and spreads his hands in a universal “well?” gesture. 

Steve shakes his head, but quirks his mouth and tugs Bucky’s jeans and boxers down. 

Bucky lifts his hips and kicks his feet, helping Steve get them all the way off and continues. “That was his point. I think,” Bucky adds. “I mean. It’s Clint. You gotta read between the lines.”

“Mmph,” Steve says, his mouth right where Bucky wants it. He needs to get to the point, it’s going to get hard to string his thoughts together if he draws it out. 

“You know this is more,” Bucky grabs his stomach gives it a couple quick shakes. 

“Mmmph!” Steve groans, scrubbing his forehead against it.

“Been wondering if it was too much. If it’d ever be too much.”

“The fuck,” Steve says, pulling off Bucky to loom over him. 

“I’m allowed to have crazy thoughts,” Bucky says. 

“The craziest,” Steve says. “Buck, you gotta know -”

“I know, I know,” Bucky says.

“No, this is important. You gotta know there’s nothing you could do -”

“Steve,” Bucky starts.

“Nothing -”

“Steve.”

“Nothing.”

“I know, Steve. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

“Nothing,” Steve says one more time.

* * *

Steve and Clint walk back into the shop after their coffee-and-pastries run. 

“Don’t people usually get pizza and beer when they help someone move?”

“It’s 10am, Clint.”

“Yeah?”

The bakery has a limited menu, and they’re not really open to the public anymore. They’re just getting rid of stock, saying goodbye to whoever wanders by. A few people are taking last minute walks around the neighborhood, some still finishing packing. Anything that doesn’t sell by the end of the day will be donated to the rec, which the developers oh-so-graciously decided to save.

They’re going to invest in upgrading the building, provide some financing for additional programs. It’s strictly a PR move, orchestrated to get the undecideds in line, but if it’ll save some much-needed resources for the neighborhood, Steve’ll have to count it as a win. 

He needs to count as much as possible as a win, and even then he can barely bring himself to even try to think they came out on top. 

“You can’t fight progress,” Bucky told him, after the city council had taken their final vote. They moved in favor of the developers, citing economic development and the greater social good. 

“This isn’t progress,” Steve spat. “This is greed, pure and simple.”

“I know babe. But we got them to agree to mixed-income housing. Solar. Green space.”

“Dog park,” Clint added, dejectedly.

“Yeah. Doesn’t feel like enough.”

“Never does,” Bucky said, pulling Steve in and kissing the top of his head. “Come on. Ruby’s isn’t going anywhere at least. Let’s go get some food.”

“I’m not hungry,” Steve said. 

“Yeah, yeah.”

The whole gang wandered in eventually, quiet and subdued until finally Ruby clapped her hands and said, “You kids. You got 'til midnight to mope, and then you need to start figuring out what to do next.”

And, well. Pepper brought out her planner and the brainstorming began. 

The only good thing about the eviction date coming so quickly is that Bucky’s too distracted to let August get to him the way it usually does. He makes it through the entire month with only one panic attack, five sleepless nights, and three nightmares. 

Steve frowns, looking down the street. They’ve already brought in cranes and bulldozers, even though construction won’t start until the weekend’s over. He shakes his head and pulls open the door to the shop. 

“What? What is this noise? Wanda, why are there jock jams coming from my shop?”

“I kinda like it,” Clint says, doing a little gyration. 

“This is a tattoo parlor, not a Foot Locker,” Steve frowns harder, a line forming between his eyebrows. 

“He’s your husband. Ask him,” Wanda says, rolling her eyes and packing away an unopened box of neoprene gloves. 

“Jock jams, Bucky?” Steve questions, despair for the human race evident in his voice.

“It’s football day, Steve.”

“It’s moving day.”

“Can be both.”

“Since it is,” Pietro says. 

Wanda frowns. “I thought American football was a winter sport.”

“Please, it’s just football. Real football. And it is,” Bucky says. “Well. Fall and winter.”

“It’s ninety degrees today,” Steve mutters. 

Bucky throws a tattoo magazine at him. “Because it’s never snowed on Opening Day.”

“But I thought it was played on Sunday. As a national pastime,” Wanda says.

“Okay, no,” Steve says, tossing the magazine on the recycle pile. “The national pastime is baseball.”

“Actually, going by ticket sales,” Bucky starts.

“No. No no no.” Steve shoves Bucky hard. Bucky, of course, does not move. At all. “The national pastime. Is. Baseball. And turn this shit off. I will not let these sounds be the last these walls hear. It’s bad karma. Clint, back me up.”

“You want to turn on some prog rock?” Clint scoffs.

“Clint, I will kick your ass. Styx is amazing. Better than your fiddle nonsense.”

“I’ll kick your ass, Steve.”

“No one will kick anyone’s ass,” Bucky says. He plays up his frustration a little bit. “That’s all I ever hear from you people anymore. Kick his ass this, kick your ass there, kick my ass the other way.” He’d been trying to avoid the petty picking Steve and Clint were both prone to when they were overly tired and things were beyond their control with this soundtrack. Yes, the first football game of the year will come on the television later, and yes, he and Clint will get beers and wings, and yes, that always does put him in a nostalgic mood.

But also when their friends walk into the shop for moving day, for what is shaping up to be the last time, with tensions running high the way they are, the soundtrack is going to be a major part of how the day plays out.

Steve’s brand of punk is right out, what with the anger and violence and railing against injustice and all. Too close to home. Likewise Clint’s music, which oddly presents many of the same issues, just underscored by banjos and mandolins. Wanda and Pietro generally seem to listen to seemingly-innocuous indie music or old time southern soul. Indie makes Steve want to punch things even more than punk, and Bucky’s keeping a playlist of classic soul/funk/R&B in his back pocket for when the booming bass and repetitive techno-lite finally wears out its welcome. But to begin with, this is poppy, it’s upbeat, and it’s unusual enough in their crowd that he won’t ruin a favorite song with bad memories.

Also, when Steve realizes what Bucky’s done, he’ll go all music nerd on him and Bucky will very likely get enthusiastically and appreciatively laid, which is pretty fantastic motivation on its own. Steve loves a mixtape.

“Yes, fine, boys. Football,” Wanda says. “This is not a Sunday.”

“Sometimes it’s played on Thursdays,” Bucky says.

“And Mondays,” Clint adds. 

“And Saturdays,” Steve says, still shoving mostly playfully at Bucky. 

“No, that’s college ball.”

“No, there are playoff games on Saturdays.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, the playoffs.”

“But it’s mostly Sundays,” Clint says, just as the shop’s speakers demand to know if they are “ready for this”. 

“Mostly,” Wanda says. “You just named half the days.”

“I feel like I’m about to get beaten up under the bleachers,” Steve mutters. 

“Wait, Pietro, stop!” Bucky shouts. Everyone freezes. “Sorry, just. The chair goes with us.”

“My guest room is not big enough for your sentimentality,” Natasha says, materializing from the alley, but she waves Clint and Pietro to take the chair to the van. 

“It’s just until we figure out what comes next,” Bucky says. “Or until Steve pisses you off and we have to crash with Peggy and Maria.”

“I’ll take the odds on that one,” Clint calls, rock-paper-scissoring with Pietro for who has to lift the chair into the moving van. 

* * *

Steve finds Bucky on the roof. The sun is just coming up, but it’s still shadowy and quiet - as quiet as the city ever gets, anyway. He’s on one of the benches he made, the only thing left up there, looking out over the edge, hidden in the shadow of one of the construction cranes. 

Steve takes the long way around, avoiding where the flowerbeds had been out of habit and muscle memory. Years ago, Fabiana had come home from school upset. Well, she was actually more angry than anything, she really could be his kid, honestly. One of the girls in her kindergarten had made fun of her drawing and told her flowers don’t look like that, and Fabi said yes they do too and that was it, they were mortal enemies. 

Bucky went out and bought as many daisies as he could find and put them all over the roof. He gave one to Fabi every day after school. 

“We gotta go, don’t we,” Bucky says. 

“It’s time,” Steve answers.

“Jo took that job in Minneapolis. It’s a pay raise and a promotion on top of the cost of living difference, and the school is amazing. She can’t not take it. Said the changes here were a sign.”

“That where she’s been sneaking off to?” Steve asks, pressing up tight to Bucky’s back, hooking his chin over Bucky’s shoulder. 

“Yeah. Final interview. Signed the offer letter. She got back earlier. Heard her in the hallway. ’S what woke me up.”

Steve sighs. “It’s still not right.”

“Nope,” Bucky says. “Pepper and Bruce said the relocation committee is really working, though, getting everyone resettled.”

“Band-aid,” Steve says. “Not every community this happens to is going to have a Pepper and Bruce.”

“Or you,” Bucky says. He raises his hand, slowly, out of the shadows and his fingers almost seem to glow in the sunlight. He drops his hand back down to his thigh. “Clint wants to move to Florida.”

“Why Florida?” Steve asks, turning his head into Bucky’s neck to block out the sun. Kisses Bucky a little, soft, no heat. Comfort. 

“Because once you have a heart attack you have to retire to Miami or Phoenix and Clint hates the desert,” Bucky explains, clearly quoting. 

“And Coulson?”

“Already bought a place.”

“Of course he did.”

“It’s got four bedrooms. There’s one that’s blue he thinks we’d like. We can’t have the purple one, that’s for playtime.”

“I, uh. I don’t want to ask, do I,” Steve says. 

“Not sober,” Bucky laughs softly to himself. “Whatdaya say?”

“What the hell. I guess we’re moving to Florida.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on twitter!


End file.
